


Lifelong Love Song

by suzannahbee123



Series: Lifelong Love Song series [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Childbirth, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forties Bucky, Light Angst, Mild Smut, Not Captain Ameria: The First Avenger compliant, Thirties Bucky, World War II, dad bucky, possible historical innacuracies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22316335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzannahbee123/pseuds/suzannahbee123
Summary: On the night of his eighteenth birthday, Bucky seeks out a higher form of life - but he hadn’t expected to find an angel in the middle of a smoky bar. One glance and one night, and his whole life will change… for better and for worse.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Lifelong Love Song series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606261
Comments: 13
Kudos: 22





	1. Part One

**March 17, 1935**

Times were hard but then, times had always been a little hard. It was cold but then, this was New York and the streets had barely been graced with a touch of spring yet. It was a Sunday and Bucky Barnes had to go to work the next morning at 6.00am but, well, you only turned eighteen once, right?

“Buck, are you sure about this? This place is exclusive, we’re never gonna get in,”

Rolling his eyes heavenward, but unable to shake the excited grin from his face, Bucky turned back to Steve, trailing behind with his hands in his pockets, and yanked him to his side,

“Of course we are, pal! I told ya, I know the guy on the door, slipped him a buck, he’ll let ya, in no problem!”

“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t? Just… jeez, Buck, just go have fun without me, yeah? I’m not exactly goin’ t’be the life and soul of the joint, anyway, am I?”

Unwilling to dignify that with a response, Bucky just continued to march them towards the jazz club that he had been desperate to go to since it had opened a few months earlier. That whole scene, it may not be for the likes of him, too poor, too rough around the edges, not swanky enough for the likes of the hoity toity dames that breezed in there with their fellas all done up nice… but Bucky wanted to try. Just for one night.

The law said he was a man now, but his parents had been putting that responsibility on him for years already. Looking after his little sisters, helping his dad at the grocery store he ran, fixing this and mending that for his ma. Never mind the full time job that was keeping Steve Rogers out of trouble.

Bucky wanted his birthday to be one he would remember for the rest of his boring life, and there was nothing going to stop him.

“Steve? Do me a favour?”

A sigh, then; “Yeah, Buck?”

“Shut up and have fun?”

There was no articulate response from his best friend, just a snort of derision, but Bucky took that as an agreement. He knew it was hard for Steve, getting sick so easily and barely reaching most women’s shoulders and all, but Bucky just wanted him to forget that for one night.

Was that too much to ask?

The club came into view, just some buzzing red neon letters glowing against the dirty shining red brick of the building:  _ Armstrong’s _ .

It was the talk of Brooklyn.  _ Everyone  _ was allowed in, no questions asked. Men played their instruments and dames crooned melodies that shaped your views on love and loss. Music that stayed with you for the rest of your life. An oasis of escapism clouded in cigarette smoke and women’s perfume. 

Now Bucky could see it, he wanted it. He wanted to dance with every woman there, talk to every man, taste the high priced bourbon that he was told was a  _ real  _ man’s drink. Bucky wanted that life, but was smart enough to know that he was only going to get it for this one night.

He was going to make the most of it.

“Hey, Frank!” Bucky easily strolled past the line inching its way towards the entry and reached out his palm to the guy that came to buy cigarettes for his wife from his dads grocery store, “Havin’ a good night here freezin’ y’ass off?”

Frank, tall, burly, and bald as a coot, glowered down at them, his eyes shining with more menace than Bucky had ever seen inside the shop. Steve’s palm landed on his shoulder… maybe this had been a bad idea…

“Hey, Bucky,” a slow smile spread across the bigger man’s face, “You and ya pal have a great time, ya hear? There’s plenty of tail indoors too, try not t’get  _ too  _ lucky,”

Relief punched through Bucky, an upper cut from his coach at the YMCA would’ve caused less breathlessness. Bucky grinned helplessly at the man, “Yeah, yeah, I’m just here for the ambience and booze, pal!”

Frank hummed a laugh, eyed Steve briefly before shrugging, and unclipping the rope that barred them from the entry, “Sure ya are, Bucky. Sure.”

A handshake, another precious dollar transferred discreetly to the bouncer, and Bucky was heading into the club, Steve at his side. 

_ Beautiful, unburdened chaos. _

Bucky went slack jawed, Steve mirroring his expression.

The music was  _ loud,  _ trumpets and saxophones, drums and cello's… other sounds Bucky was wholly unfamiliar with… they all  _ blared _ from the large stage at the back of the huge room, the men playing them smiling brightly, Dancing in their seats even as they played music.

People were  _ everywhere,  _ talking, drinking, and dancing… but not like any kind of dance Bucky has ever seen back at his old school dances. Where he had expected soft and sedate and classy… he saw  _ joy. _

This was wild and free, pandemonium in graceful heaving limbs. Not a single move recognisable, but all of them were something Bucky wanted to try.

Hell,  _ that  _ guy was swinging a woman around his shoulders!

“Uhhh… yeah, no way am I dancin’, Buck,”

Steve said it dryly, but his voice held humour that only Bucky really heard. He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, “Right? Think you’d get a heart attack and then ya ma would have me buried next to ya!”

Smiles stretching across both their faces, the unfettered  _ excitement  _ of the club was hard to not be affected by, they turned towards the bar. Bucky leant on the mahogany top, looking over the booze that was as unfamiliar as the dancing and just as exciting to him, “How much do ya think these bottles cost, Steve? More’n dad makes in a year, huh?”

“They better get us drunk then, for that damn price!”

The barman came over, eyes twinkling and teeth glowing brightly against the full smile he was wearing, “Whatcha fellas want?”

“Two bourbons, please. It’s both of our birthdays and we’re here to celebrate!”

The man’s smile stretched impossibly wider, and he bellowed a deep and genuine laugh, “Oh sure! Both of you guys are here celebrating your joint birthday? Pull the other one! Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

Steve’s smile died, and Bucky’s shoulders dropped, surely he wouldn’t  _ actually  _ tell them they were too young and toss them out…

Another deep bass laugh, and the man shrugged, turning back to the dark bottles and pulling one down, “Just jessin’ with ya, fellas! Knock these back, get some courage in ya!”

The dark liquid swirled in slightly dusty glasses, tempting and decadent. The rich aroma caught Bucky’s nostrils, all but begging him to get more acquainted with it… to try this  _ real man’s  _ drink, let the most alluring thing he had ever seen slide down his throat…

“Happy birthday, Bucky, here’s to many more,”

Steve’s deep voice at his right hand shoulder, his own glass held out towards Bucky’s. Blinking, he took his glass and nodded his head towards his best friend,

“Yeah. Cheers, pal.”

The bourbon went down his throat, burning into his stomach. Coughs erupted and spluttered over the bar, causing the barman to laugh heartily at them. Eyes watering, Bucky slammed the glass back onto the scarred wooden surface, 

“Crock of shit! I’m stickin’ with beer!”

“Christ, that tasted like  _ crap!”  _ Steve whimpered, rubbing his hand gingerly over his sternum. Bucky was  _ about  _ to check on him, he really didn’t want to end up buried next to Steve after his and Steve’s had murdered him, but that was the moment his whole life changed. Not, of course, that he knew it at the time.

“Hey, Stanley, can I get three martinis? Thanks, handsome,”

That  _ voice…  _ deep, inviting… it was chocolate and velvet and candlelight. Cold winter nights spent warm in bed. That voice was what he had  _ wanted  _ the bourbon to be… his new high class addiction. Bucky turned, easily ignoring his friend to look over at the woman with the amazing voice.

And felt his heart leave his body and go to hers between one beat and the next.

Tawny hair, golden like the straw from the farm he worked on for one summer a few years back… blue green eyes, like how he always imagined the sea would look right in the middle of the ocean on the warmest and sunniest day. Dressed all in blue, and outshining every other dame there.

An ice queen with the voice of fire.

Those blue eyes suddenly racked over him, Bucky felt that gaze in his  _ toes. _ A smile graced those pretty red lips, and she blushed just a little, almost coyly.

This was the part where Bucky would lay down a line, the ones that he had been working on, even tried out on or two on the girls that he saw in the shop… but this golden haired angel beat him to it;

“Take a picture, darlin’, it’ll last longer,”

A wink, and then she took her cocktails and turned back to her friends, disappearing into the crowd.

“Steve…” Bucky finally turned back to his friend, “I think I’m in love,”

An eye roll, “Great, I think I broke a rib coughing,”


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the night of his eighteenth birthday, Bucky seeks out a higher form of life - but he hadn’t expected to find an angel in the middle of a smokey bar. One glance and one night, and his whole life will change… for better and for worse.

It was a madness, the urge to go find that beautiful woman, it gripped Bucky, like fingers constricting his lungs. He needed to see her, hear that incomparable  _ voice  _ again more than he needed to breathe. The sounds of the riotous jazz music faded into a buzz, every colour and smell dissipated into black and white and smoke. All Bucky could see was the dark gold of her head and the baby blue of her dress and the rich smell of… whatever perfume it was she was wearing.

Bucky had no clue what the expensive concoction was, but he wanted to bury his nose in it, fill his head with that scent so he could carry her with him all the time…

“Bucky?”

All at once, the sounds and colours and smells came back, like a tidal wave for his senses, and he had to blink a few times to reacclimatise himself to the darkened space. His ice queen with the voice of fire was nowhere to be seen though, she had taken that bright pure light with her, and-

“Bucky, Jesus, would ya snap out of it, already?!”

Steve’s irritated bark finally cleared Bucky’s head. A smirk stretched across his lips… the woman of his dreams was here, in the place he could only be in for one night. Tonight was the night he was going to live his high class aspirations, and that beautiful dame with the smile like an open fire was now a part of that.

One dance. Maybe a taste of those pretty red lips… he couldn’t keep her, he knew just from looking that she was  _ way _ out of the league of the likes of him, but then, a dream was only supposed to last for one night, wasn’t it?

“Come on, Stevie,” Bucky took a gulp of his beer, gently smacking Steve’s shoulder, “Stop rubbin’ ya chest and come explore with me, don’t’cha want to try a dance with one of these girls?” 

A fond eye roll from his friend, but Steve didn’t disagree. Bucky knew he would  _ try  _ to dance, if only to be in the spirit for Bucky’s birthday. They walked towards the dance floor, just two guys enjoying the scene and looking to cut a rug with the nearest gorgeous creature that they happened upon.

Bucky could feel eyes on him, and he added some swagger to his steps. The completely honest side of himself could admit to himself he knew he was a handsome guy, even if it was something that he would never admit to out loud. The way women’s eyes had started gliding over him at the store in recent months told him that he was easy on the eye.

Bucky hadn’t cared about it though. Not really. Suddenly though, all he wanted was to hear  _ her  _ lips spill how handsome he was into his ear, maybe he would murmur how gorgeous she was into hers as he held her in his arms under the soft light of the moon on their wedding day…

Steve caught his arm as Bucky stumbled. Where the hell had  _ that  _ thought come from?

“Buck, you alright?”

The soft tittering laughter of two pretty women caught Bucky’s ear and, spinning on his heel and hoping no one saw his clumsy idiot behaviour, Bucky strolled over to them. One with red hair and brown eyes, the other with black hair and blue eyes.

Both real pretty. Both of them not able to hold a candle to his ice queen.

“Say,” Bucky smiled at them, running his hand through the slightly longer locks of hair at the front of his head sheepishly, “I hope I don’t sound outta line here, ladies but uh… ya both look real tired, don’t they, Steve?”

A blush bloomed across Steve’s cheeks, and he ducked his eyes after groaning at Bucky in disgust, “N-no, these ladies look-”

Shock and a little anger rushed across the women’s faces, so Bucky grinned charmingly at them,

“I think it’s because you dames have been running through my mind all day!”

Gasps, delicate hands holding delicate glasses went to their mouths, and then  _ finally,  _ pretty red blushing their cheeks and tinkling laughter from their lips. They weren’t his ice queen, but they were pretty and the redhead was looking at Steve with vague interest… 

“Would ya like t’dance?”

“Sure, honey,” the woman with the black hair stood up, “I’m Mabel, this is my friend, Ruth,”

“Beautiful names for beautiful dames,” Bucky winked, earning himself another cute giggle, “This is my friend Steve and I’m James Barnes, but y’can call me Bucky, doll,”

“You sure are a charmer, Bucky Barnes,” Mabel murmured, taking his hand with a smile, “I hope you can keep up,”

Mabel wasn’t the beautiful ice queen, but she had fire and sass. She danced with him as Steve sat and talked with Ruth, and Bucky  _ almost  _ forgot about the dame with the eyes of the arctic sea and the voice of glowing embers…

Until the end of the third dance. That’s when he saw her again. Mabel dipped over his arm, panting slightly from exertion and a toothy grin crinkling the corners of his eyes. He looked up, and there she was, staring at him from her seat at the edge of the dance floor.

A smile  _ barley _ lifted her lips, but she shone brighter than everyone else there.

Bucky felt it again. That lightning connection. Her gaze held him spellbound, those eyes that held the sea were calling him… she was a siren…

“Hey, you get exhausted or something, Bucky?” Mabel, lovely and pleasant Mabel, poked him gently in his side, plain blue eyes staring curiously at him, “You still wanna dance?”

The beautiful ice queen raised her glass to him and turned away, but Bucky saw just the faintest hint of red in her cheeks when she saw him looking. Emboldened, Bucky spun Mabel, twirling her until her laughter rang back out. He would find out who that woman was, soon.

The minutes turned into hours, midnight drawing closer and closer, and Bucky danced with Mabel, with Ruth, with some other elegant and enchanting women whose names he didn’t even bother to get. Their names didn’t matter.

Just the flash of baby blue skirts and tawny gold hair in his peripheral vision. She danced like an angel, joy and love and  _ life  _ in every step. And yet, that smile never even graced her eyes.

Steve was happily talking to the bartender, Bucky’s latest dame exited his arms to “powder her nose”, and Bucky was all alone on the dance floor. He immediately went to look for his ice queen… but he couldn’t see her.

His heart dropped… he had waited too long-

“Hey, handsome. Can I have this dance? Or are ya all danced out already?”

Almost tripping over his own feet,  _ again,  _ Bucky spun to face her.  _ Gold.  _ Her eyes had little gold flecks in them, he could see it now he was closer to her. Those sea eyes held more treasures than he realised…

She was staring at him, that inscrutable smirk still playing lightly on her red lips. Feeling his cheeks positively  _ burn,  _ Bucky ducked his eyes and grinned, “I definitely have a dance in me for you, doll,”

“My name is Madeline. Don’t call me “doll”, sweetheart,”

_ Madeline…  _ Bucky’s smile grew and he held out his hand for her to take. It didn’t matter that she didn’t like his standard pet name. It’s also didn’t matter that she had casually used her own pet name on  _ him. _ His ice queen,  _ Madeline,  _ was in his arms.

“Can I call ya, Maddie?”

“Not if you want an answer,” her left hand landed lightly on his right shoulder, as he gently pulled her closer to him. Not close enough to touch… but he could feel that warmth against his shirt. It made him shiver in a  _ good  _ way. “What’s your name?”

Madeline was tall, her head barely had to tilt so she could meet his eyes. Bucky decided that he liked it, liked having this unique queen in his arms who asked  _ him  _ to dance and didn’t like pet names. 

“I’m James. Y’can call me Bucky… if ya like?”

Her smirk grew into something closer to a smile, “I like James. Where’d y’come up with “Bucky”? Sounds like y’tryin’ not to hiccup,”

Oh, she was  _ witty! _ Little bubbles of joy fizzed through his blood stream at the small mockery of his nickname, “It’s from my middle name, Buchanan,”

“Oh?” Madeline smiles again, an enigmatic smile, but Bucky could see that warmth, “Well… I think James is a handsome name. Suits a handsome guy,”

Warmth flooded his cheeks once more.  _ Never  _ would he have thought that he would be made to blush this often by a woman, that was his job, wasn’t it? Making the dames blush and giggle all pretty…

“So…” he began, swaying her gently from side to side, lost in his own soft music she made him hear, “What’s a girl like you doin’ in a place like this, Madeline?”

Those gold blue eyes held his, and her lips tilted into that half smile that wasn’t a smile. On a shrug she murmured, “Isn’t this the done thing on your birthday, James? Go out and have a dance with a handsome guy?”

“It’s your birthday too?!”

Madeline looked shocked for a split second, before she nodded, a more  _ real _ looking smile pulling up the other side of her mouth, “Sure is. Don’t tell me we share a birthday now, sweetheart. A woman can only handle so much perfection in one man, you know,”

“I turned eighteen today, Madeline. One night of being the man that can go out and woo the ladies with no other responsibilities,”

Why Bucky told her that, he didn’t know. Sure she was beautiful and sassy and captured his attention far more easily than any other woman had been able to, but spill his secrets?

She was going to roll those pretty eyes and walk away-

“Hmmm…” Madeline’s eyes searched his face, smile dropping back into nothing, “it’s too young an age to be feeling this level of responsibility, huh? I had to lie to my parents to be let out of the door.”

Instinctively, Bucky pulled her closer, just a bare fraction of air between them. Music was still upbeat, just begging the dancers to swing and jive… but this bubble Bucky and his ice queen were in was too perfect to burst. This soft side to side held more emotion than all those upbeat moves.

“So we both have this one night to celebrate then? I’ll tell ya, Madeline… getting to dance with you has made this the best birthday ever,”

“Sweet talker. Words like that will have all the girls fallin’ for ya,”

“I only want one,”

_ There.  _ He said it. If Madeline was appalled or shocked at his boldness, she didn’t show it… just stepped that little bit closer, hooking her arms securely around his neck. It was easy, and felt far too right, for Bucky to loop his own around her waist. She felt so good in his arms, smelled so pretty. He didn’t want to let her go.

“I like dancin’ with you, James… maybe we could do this again sometime.”

She said it like it wasn’t a question. Like it was going to happen, nothing was in the way. 

“Oh yeah?” Bucky grinned at his ice queen, playing along for just a minute, “You wanna step out on a date with me, Madeline? Let me paint the town red with ya?”

“Sure. I won’t promise to fall in love with you though. A girl has to hold something back, you understand that, right?”

_ Fall in love…  _ it would be so easy. Bucky felt he was halfway there already.

“I don’t think I’m good enough for the likes of you, Madeline, anyhow. Probably best we don’t fall in love, darlin’,”

A gentle tug on the shorter hairs at the base of his neck, then; “Don’t call me, darlin’, hiccup,”

He laughed then, enraptured with everything about her. What made a woman, the type for a man to fall in love with, was right there ensnared in his arms and giving him hell. One night of dancing was not going to be enough.

“I’ll take ya on a date, Madeline. I just want to spend time with you…”

It was stupid. Foolish. Bucky couldn’t keep her and Madeline no doubt had parents who would take her away to whatever it was that proper rich society dames did when they became an adult…

But they met  _ now.  _ Whatever time they had would be enough.

  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

It had been a tradition in the Barnes household for Bucky to read his little sisters a bedtime story before they fell asleep. The two bright eyed faces staring eagerly up at him as he read tales of fairytale magic and quests for love and treasure made Bucky’s evenings magical. He could be sat in that uncomfortable chair under the dim lighting, backside getting bruises from the lack of padding on the wooden seat… but it wouldn’t matter as Becky and Agatha stared and gasped and cheered as good won over evil.

Every single time.

Bucky’s nights were filled with adventures that didn’t belong to him, battles that he wouldn’t fight and love that was held dear by  _ other  _ people. Bucky always believed that these types of fantastical stories were the perfect getaway for people like him and his sisters. They would never travel, never fight good over evil… and any love he found would be soft and safe and not at  _ all _ exciting. Bucky  _ lived  _ for those evenings with his sisters because they were the closest he would get to adventure and grand love.

But then, he turned eighteen, met Madeline… and Bucky got to live his fairytale.

***

**April 1935**

“Bucky… where’re y’goin’?”

Leg hooked over the windowsill, Bucky tried to appear normal and  _ not  _ like he was sneaking out in the dead of night to visit his love…

“Uh… I’m checkin’ for woodworm, Becky… go back to bed,”

“Woodworm? With your leg?” A dark and disbelieving eyebrow raised at him, “You think I’m stupid or something, Bucky?”

Pulling his leg back into his room, Bucky glared at his thirteen year old sister, “Sure I do. You don’t know squat about woodworm, and that’s why you’ll live in a house that’ll fall down around your ears,”

Her jaw dropped open and her hands landed solidly on her hips, “Y’don’t fool me, Bucky! You’re tryin’ t’sneak out!”

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time he had done this, Bucky was no heartbreaker, but he loved spending time with the pretty dames on the street, especially in this past year. There were a few window sills that he climbed onto to press soft and chaste kisses onto the inhabitants lips. Many an ear who had listened to his poetry and endearments…

Not to mention all the times that Bucky had rushed out to be with Steve when his friend got  _ really  _ sick and there was a gloomy chance that he wouldn’t see another sunrise. Becky always covered for him then, Bucky hoped she would do it now.

Two steps and he was right in front of his sister, her blue eyes mildly amused at his lies. Ruffling her hair, Bucky whispered, “I’m meeting someone… she’s real pretty and way out of my league-”

“Everyone is out of your league, you dolt,”

“Hey!” A gentle mock cuff around her head, but he was laughing too much to really be mad, “I’ll have you know imma catch, okay? My girl knows it,”

Becky scoffs, but her lips tilt up in a cheeky grin, “Yeah, whatever, Bucky. When can we meet her? Y’know ma will wanna meet the woman you’re gonna marry!”

“No, uh… that won’t happen, okay? She’s… Maddie is goin’ t’finishing school in the fall… I only have a few months with her, Becky, understand? So I’m taking my opportunities where I can,”

Becky, soft hearted and strong willed Becky, nodded her head wisely. She was too much like him, head filled with grand notions but tempered with too much understanding of how the world really worked… it was sad that his baby sister already realised that Madeline was going to go away and never see him again because Bucky wasn’t the type of guy she would  _ ever  _ be expected to spend her life with.

“Okay. I get it it. I’ll keep the window open for ya, Buck,”

“Thanks, kid,”

“I’m not a kid!”

Bucky was already ducking out of the open window, head already filled with images of Madeline as she waited in her window for him… Bucky never went inside, but he didn’t need to. Just holding her hand and talking about everything and nothing under the moonlight was enough.

***

**June 1935**

“Hey, handsome, got any corn flour?”

Bucky dropped the sack of flour he was holding on to the floor, the cloud of white rising up and enveloping him. He would still see her though,  _ Madeline,  _ staring at him through the mist with that inscrutable smirk across her lips.

“Maddie!” Bucky felt the blush rise up his neck and onto his face, quickly (and pointlessly) patted himself to rid himself of the white dust, “What the hell are you  _ doin’ _ here, doll?”

_ Here  _ was the shop that his dad owned, in  _ Brooklyn,  _ where Maddie had stated that she had  _ never  _ been to… unless it was Armstrong’s, of course. And yet, here she was, holding onto a small bag of flour demurely, like she had never held onto one before in her life. Bucky looked around, frowning when he saw she was on her own,

“Are you here with your mom? Or your friends?”

“No… I took the subway, Hiccup,” Madelines lips, painted in the pretty pink shade that she liked, twisted into a pout, “Aren’t you happy to see me, James?”

His stomach dropped, of course he was  _ happy…  _ seeing her always made his day shine just a little brighter but, god _ damn  _ it… she was on her own in a city like this…

“C’mere…” Bucky grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the back of the store, pausing to yell out, “Pop, I spilled some flour, I’m grabbing some supplies, I’ll be back in a minute!”

He didn’t hear the reply, barely heard when Madeline groaned in annoyance behind him, just pulled her through to the stock room, and then further to the exit at the back and out into the alleyway.

“Hey, won’t ya introduce me t’your dad, James?”

Slamming the door behind him, Bucky pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t  _ hard,  _ but this kiss was far from the soft and reverential ones he usually worshipped her with. His hands carefully threaded into her neatly pinned hair, holding her precious face carefully to his… this dame took the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn,  _ on her own,  _ for  _ him… _

_ “ _ James… Hiccup… can ya let a girl  _ breathe?!” _

He pulled away, breathing hard, feeling masculine satisfaction when he saw how swollen her lips were and how red her face now was.

Another second passed, Bucky hung his head and stepped further back, giving her some space, “I’m sorry, Madeline… are you okay? Did anyone hurt you, or-?”

“Hurt me? Whattya talkin’ about, James? I just-”

“Maddie, y’can’t just come down here and- and-” Bucky thrust his hands into his hair, panic worming his way into his bloodstream, “It coulda been  _ dangerous,  _ Maddie!”

“Stop callin’ me that goddamn name, James!”

Her words cut through his panic and unfounded anger. Taking a deep breath, again, he moved towards her and took her hand in his, relieved that she didn’t pull away, “I’m sorry, Madeline… but that subway ain’t safe for a woman on her own. Hell, sometimes it ain’t safe for a man on his own… I couldn’t bear it if something were to have happened to you, honey,”

Those sea treasure eyes glittered with what looked horribly like tears, but she paused before answering, pursing her lips in that way that showed she was thinking things through, “I know… even in my ivory tower I hear things, Hiccup,”

Bucky smiled at the silly endearment, tilting her chin slightly so he could meet her eyes. Madeline took a shaky breath before continuing,

“I just… I missed you, James. You haven’t been by in over a week and… I just wanted to see you, okay?” A watery smile, then, “You’ve turned me into a sap,”

He had wanted to go to her, god knows it was all he ever thought about, but Agatha had been sick this past week… his ma has needed all the support he could give her. Time to go woo his girl had just not materialised.

Bucky crushed Madeline to him, holding her tight because he  _ did  _ understand. Midnight dalliances at her window just weren’t enough anymore. They had moved onto starlit walks through quiet streets, hushed steps through deserted parks… needy and desperate kisses stolen in the shadows of big houses that Bucky would  _ never  _ be able to set foot in and Madeline was  _ not  _ supposed to be out of…

But he loved her. It hurt that this was all they would have.

“You’re  _ my  _ sap though, right? My pretty sap who’s too brave and smart for her own good.”

“Damn right, I am,” Madeline hugged him closer, “Well? Aren’t you gonna tell me you’re mine, too?”

“You know I am. I’m a gonner for you, Madeline Anka.”

Madeline Anka. Daughter of a polish banker who had made his fortune when coming to the USA. He only wanted the very best for his only child. Private schools, tutors, dance and piano… Madeline had it all handed to her.

The husband she would eventually be expected to marry would be just like her. Wealthy, refined and able to give her nothing but the best.

Bucky loved his Madeline… but he couldn’t keep her. Three months and she would be gone to some finishing school in Switzerland and he would never hear from her again.

“Come on…” Bucky pressed a kiss to the top of her head, dusted off the bits of flour that clung to the front of her polka dot dress, “Let me get ya back to Manhattan, okay? You’re not going alone again,”

She stayed quiet, didn’t make a sound when Bucky made an excuse to his dad and barely said anything on the journey back across the river.

But she didn’t let go of his hand, either.

***

**August 1935**

Bucky had received a letter just the previous day. He thanked his lucky stars that he did, one day later and he wouldn’t be  _ here _ now… with Madeline looking at him the way she was…

_ Dear Hiccup, _

_ This is not going to be the best written letter, my hands are shaking and I’m trying not to choke on my own tears. Wouldn’t that make my father angry? A dead daughter and a waste of money for this damn finishing school. _

_ I thought I had longer with you, but I don’t, James. My parents have booked me on an earlier boat to England, which will then take me onto France, and then a train to Switzerland. I’m going to be going in two days, Hiccup and I can’t bear the thought of never seeing you again. _

_ Please, my parents are going to some boring function tomorrow night, won’t be back until the morning. Please, James? Please come to me?  _

_ Yours always, Maddie. _

It had come to him, hand delivered by Maddie’s driver, Alfred. The man had caught them one evening last month, Bucky holding Maddie’s hand as he kissed that spot on her cheek that made her giggle. Alfred knew that Bucky couldn’t stay, and therefore didn’t give them a hard time.

He also made sure to chaperone and hover like a hawk at their other trysts.

Bucky read that letter, and felt his heart shatter in his chest. He had  _ known  _ it was coming, of course he had. But he had allowed himself to hope for some fairytale miracle, anyway. Some magic fix that meant he could propose to the woman of his dreams and have her father give his blessing.

Of course he was going to see her. And of course he was going to let her take his heart with her when she told him to leave this one last time.

Except… now he was here, in her  _ house,  _ and his palms wouldn’t stop sweating and his heart raced too much to let him catch his breath. 

“I’m- I don’t w-want you t’think that I’m… I’m not  _ that  _ girl, James…”

She stood in her bedroom with him in the doorway. Their idle small talk in the parlour has become too strained for them both and she had suggested that they come up here.

It was her safe space. Downstairs was her parents domain. Bucky understood.

“I know you’re not, sweetheart,” Bucky  _ knew  _ about this part of being in love, even if he had never experienced it himself. Blue magazines had been found in an alley after Steve took on yet another bully one afternoon. They had both perused the dirty pages together, at least until Steve’s breathing became a bit  _ too  _ laboured.

Bucky knew too, what the act of love sounded like, the walls in the small apartment his family lived in were thin at  _ best,  _ and it wasn’t just his parents that were married in the building. 

The most he had ever done himself was allow his hands to stray over the front of his dates dresses, the soft feel of their breasts teasing his palms before he made himself pull away and let those lovely and proper dames collect themselves.

_ Never  _ though, had he done anything like that with his ice queen. 

Madeline was special. A jewel. Pristine and gorgeous, and all Bucky wanted to touch… but she was going to be touched by someone that wasn’t him one day… and he knew what happened to dames that got caught out for being with a man before they were married…

“You’re perfect, Madeline… I would never make you feel uncomfortable…”

But god… he wanted to make her feel  _ good… _

She took a step closer, “I don’t want to go, Bucky… I want  _ you…  _ you and your dumb name and handsome face…”

Bucky closed the distance further, brushing her fingertips with his, “I wish I could be more for you, sweetheart…”

“Don’t call me sweetheart, Hiccup.”

It was that endearment that did it. Bucky had no idea why, but the way her voice caressed those two syllables, trembling with so many emotions… tears pricked his eyes, some spilled down his cheeks,

“Madeline… I love ya… but you gotta forget about me, okay? I’m not the one for you.”

“Don’t say that!” Bucky barely felt the thump against his shoulder. That pain didn’t compare.

“I’m not, doll, I’m just a bum and you’re a goddamn  _ queen-” _

He can’t talk then, Madeline has stolen his words with the soft press of her lips to his. Her tongue tentatively presses against his, Bucky groans into the kiss and pulls her flush to him,

“Babydoll… y’gotta-”

“Just kiss me, James… please don’t leave me without kissing me…”

Bucky didn’t want to leave her… didn’t know how to even try when she’s crying and he’s crying and the bed dips underneath them...

She’s honey in his arms, sweet and soft and filling all the cracks in the broken heart of him. Her lips taste like sugar, and her body feels like heaven and hell.

It was going to be just one night, but she captured him forever. More to the point… he  _ wanted  _ to surrender to her.

His ice queen with the voice of fire. All slick heat and fingertips that stroked ice down the skin of his back… 

Bucky didn’t leave her until the sun started to rise. Pink and gold glow against the dewy skin of her cheek. Bucky presses a kiss there, against that sacred skin that he never thought he would be blessed enough to see.

“I… I love ya, Madeline. I always will.”

“I know. I love you too, Hiccup…”

Their clothes were scattered across the room. Bucky pulls on pants, his shirt and suspenders… he doesn’t want to leave. Feels an overwhelming urge to stay and meet her father, demand he listen to him when he says that he would treat Madeline better than anyone else…

He loves her  _ completely.  _ Their love sealed overnight and he would do right by her…

“James? I… you need to go.”

A tear escapes again, dripping down the skin Bucky had only just kissed. He wants to say something sweet. Loving. Something to soothe the hurt that they inflicted on each other by falling in love… but there’s nothing to say.

One more lingering kiss. Breathing in the scent of her and their lovemaking that still lingers on the sheets. Bucky holds it in his head, the only part of her he can take with him.

Then, he leaves. Madeline behind him in her bed. The sound of her sobs echoing in his head.


	4. Part 4

**16th May 1936**

It was a nightmare. A terrifying, surreal nightmare. His pops eyes were wide, wild, Bucky had never seen him look this…  _ helpless  _ before…

Bucky’s shoes squeaked as they traversed the shining and sterile tiled floor of the hospital.

“Son? Why don’t ya sit down, yeah? Y’not helpin’  _ no one  _ with all this pacin’, kid,”

A glower, as much  _ indignation  _ in one look as he could muster at his father. “Kid” indeed. 

“I’m sorry you’re going through this right now… at this  _ age…” _ another huff from Bucky, but his pop, his poor helpless pop who had been  _ nothing  _ but a good father since…  _ it _ started… carried on, “but it’ll be over soon, and-!”

“And nothing, pop! I should be  _ in there!  _ With-!”

“No!” His dad stood then, placed his large and callused hands on Bucky’s shoulders and forced him to meet his eyes. That same shade of blue as his, father to son… “Listen, Jim, this- in there? It ain’t your place, okay? Not yet.”

Grief, worry, despair, it all welled up in him, like when the drains became overflowed after a storm and they just couldn’t get rid of all that water and dirt fast enough. Bucky’s legs collapsed from under him, and his father grunted as he caught his weight and lowered him none too gently into one of the plastic chairs.

“I’m sorry, pop… I’m so sorry… this is all my fault…”

There were awkward “there there’s” and more firm, “pull yourself together”s from George Barnes… but Bucky couldn’t listen to them. There was no getting around this fact.

Those screams coming from the hospital room down the hall were  _ absolutely  _ his fault.

**December 1935**

“Buck? Earth to Bucky? Are y’gonna gawp all day, or what?”

Jerking out of his reverie, Bucky looked at Steve who was patiently holding out a cigarette to him. Rolling his eyes, Bucky snatched them away, “What the hell are y’playin’ at, you dumb punk!”

“I wanted to try them, is all. Apparently they could help my asthma.”

“In what goddamn universe would inhaling this shit help y’lungs?” Bucky groused and threw them in the pond, “There. Now you won’t die and I won’t get skinned and mounted on ya ma’s wall,”

“What the hell is your problem, Buck?” Steve sighed, “Those were three quarters!”

“Well then you’re even more dumb than I thought, payin’ out that kinda dough,”

Oddly, a small smile tugged at Steve’s mouth, and he shrugged, “Yeah well… at least you’re talking to me. Last couple of months… are you alright, Buck? I know you miss her…”

That pain, the sharp emptiness that was always there where his heart used to be, blazed red hot again.

“I’m just… I’m sorry, but I didn’t think you would miss some dame  _ this  _ much,”

“Steve…” Bucky’s voice trailed off, leaving his best friend staring at him with his hands in his pockets and his breath misting in the air. How could he explain to the guy that Madeline  _ wasn’t  _ just “some dame” to him? From the moment he laid eyes on her… it was the most ridiculous and sappy thing but he had fallen for her, hook line and sinker. He had  _ made love  _ to her, given her his  _ everything,  _ heart, body and soul. 

And she had gone away, and she hadn’t even sent him a letter. Nothing made sense to him anymore. A quick look at Steve and a shrug, he couldn’t talk about this with Steve… not with anyone. They wouldn’t understand,

“Sorry, pal. I just miss her more than I thought I would too, I guess. Anyway,” Bufly forced a smile on his face and pulled Steve to his side, arm firm around those slim shoulders that he saw had been trembling from the cold just slightly, “come on. Enough talking about broads, huh? Let’s head to Franks, I’ll buy ya a burger, ya skinny ass,”

Steve grumbled and rolled his eyes, but didn’t put up too much more of a fight. Bucky had some cash from working extra shifts at the store, not much after he had given some back for his ma to buy new shoes for Becky and Agatha for a Christmas present, but enough still to treat him and his friend.

Madeline was gone… but he still had his friends and family and that was going to have to be enough.

***

**May 16th 1936**

“Bucky?”

Standing up so quick that the blood in his head dropped to his feet, Bucky lurched towards Steve as he hurried into the hospital waiting room, “Stevie!” Bucky shook his head to clear the lightheadedness, “What the hell are y’doin’ here?!”

“Becky told me,” Steve looked nervously down the corridor at the sounds of yelling that had just started up again, “I didn’t realise that- I mean I know it was  _ coming,  _ but-”

“Hi there, Steve,” George Barnes came over slowly, the tenderness of sitting in the incredibly uncomfortable seats making it known in how he moved, “You didn’t need to come by but… well, it’s good to have the support,”

Bucky ignored the wary look his dad gave him. His tears wouldn’t stop, nor would his shakes… the yelling and agonised screaming was getting closer and closer together… 

“Until the end of the line. I said it to him in February and I’m sayin’ it again now, Mr Barnes.”

George Barnes rolled his eyes at Steve, leaving Bucky to clasp his hand on Steve’s shoulder and surreptitiously wipe his eyes with the other. Soon, this would all be over.

“God, that sayin’ annoyed me then, boy… why would ya use it now on this blessed day?”

The tension broke a little in Bucky at his dads grumbling. At least that wouldn’t change.

***

**January 1936**

New year came and went. Bucky was dragged to Armstrong’s again by Steve who had managed to land a date with Ruth, the same dame he had talked with all those months ago. Naturally, the skinny little asshole had organised for Mabel to be there as well as “she was lonely” and Bucky “was just going to mope around at home anyway.”

Jerk.

So, he put on his best fake smile and danced with the pretty black haired woman all night and dodged her kiss at midnight with a friendly peck on the cheek, like a gentleman.

That had been a week ago, and he still couldn’t stop thinking about what Madeline had done for New Years… did she come home for the Christmas and New Year Holidays? And if she  _ had…  _ why didn’t she come see him? Then again, Bucky mused to himself as he resolutely polished his shoes for the one hundredth time to try and keep the shine, she probably wouldn’t have come home… those journeys from across the sea were no joke—

“Hey, ma! Lookit that big car outside! Looks like the President is here!”

— Ignoring Agatha’s excited yell, Bucky continued to brood on what Maddie was doing without him. His heart constricted when he remembered that the whole  _ point  _ of finishing school was to set up high society dames with the knowledge needed to be a great wife to an even better husband… what if there had been some ball, like in those stupid fairytales, and she met the  _ real  _ man of her dreams there?

Madeline was probably already picking out flowers and dresses for her wedding…

_ Knock knock knock. _

Agatha stared open mouthed at whoever was knocking on the door from her perch on the window sill. Sighing, Bucky threw down his polishing rag, “Am I gettin’ it then, Aggie? You just stay there kid, would hate for ya to break a nail,”

“But, Bucky, the man looks so  _ big...” _

Too frustrated to listen to his little sisters whisper, Bucky stormed down the small and narrow hall and threw open the door—

— and felt the world right itself between one heartbeat and the next.

Madeline was stood behind the older man,  _ very  _ large, as Agatha had stated, and barrel chested. This must be her father then. Bucky smiled, the first  _ real  _ smile in… well, since he had snuck out of her bedroom window all those months ago. On a whispered plea of her name, Bucky stepped forwards, wanting only to hold her again, when her father stepped between them, eerie smile on his face. Bucky gulped.

“Good morning, young man. I presume you are James Barnes, yes?”

Madeline’s bottom lip was trembling and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Slowly, Bucky looked back at her father, “Yes. I am.”

“Wonderful. Would you please invite us in, and call your parents? We have some…  _ news…  _ we would like to discuss.”

Sat across from Madeline and her father, Filip Anka, and in between his stony faced parents, Bucky stared blankly at the love of his life as she sat wringing her delicate hands together, tears brimming over her beautiful sea treasure eyes. He wanted to wipe them away. Whisper everything was going to be alright.

Bucky also wanted, just for a moment, to run away and never return… but he wouldn’t do that.  _ Couldn’t _ .

“So, as you understand… I have not the best idea on how to move forward. Madeline is my only child. My blessing. All I ever want for her is the best… I do not wish for her to be sent to one of those…  _ hellish  _ places to aspire to  _ “help”  _ girls like her. Not my Madeline.”

Filip’s voice was sonorous, doleful. So very matter of fact about such an incredibly life changing thing that you had no choice but to listen and be as rational as he was being.

Madeline was pregnant. Bucky was undoubtedly the father. 

“I- I don’t know what to say, here, Mr Anka,” George Barnes stammered, face beet red in both barely withheld fury, and embarrassment at being confronted with a pregnant unmarried teenager, “my boy is-”

“What you boy is or is not, is not the point anymore.” A large and soft looking hand was held up, shutting up his dad immediately, “your…  _ boy,”  _ a cold look was levelled at him, “is responsible for my daughters predicament.”

“Well… so she says,”

Madeline gasped, her face going pale. His mother slapped his pops shoulder, hard enough for him to wince and Filip Anka went from coldly genial to… well, Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what the right adjective was, but he sure looked  _ mad. _

A slew of Polish sprang from the man's lips, not one word intelligible, but the meaning was plain enough, regardless. Bucky didn’t care what his dad was being called right now… all he saw was Maddie suddenly clutching her lower belly… a small but noticeable bump right  _ there  _ where there hadn’t been one before.

All it took was one heartbeat. Bucky knew what to do.

Running from the room, ignoring the yells from the four people who screamed at him to  _ stay,  _ Bucky barged into the tiny room his sisters shared and were currently banished to. They jumped back from the door, their ears had been pressed to the surface to eavesdrop, and started babbling, but Bucky ignored them and rushed to the small toy chest they had.

“Hey! Hands off! Those are  _ mine!” _

“Mom! Bucky is stealin’ Agatha’s toys!”

Finding what he was looking for, Bucky nabbed it, grinned at his furious sisters and placed hurried kisses against the top of their heads, and ran back to the room where his parents were trying to stop Madeleine’s dad from barging through the hall for him.

They yelled, his ma took the nearest newspaper and swatted against his back and his dad made to grab him… all Bucky saw was his girl, still sat in the chair, wringing those hands with her bag in front of her softly swollen stomach. He skidded to a halt in front of her.

Bucky dropped to one knee, holding the cheap and plastic dolls ring that his sisters had found one day half buried in the school grounds one day in front of him and out to Madeline.

There was no yelling now, just utter still silence. Bucky only saw Madeline, and felt  _ whole  _ for the first time since he had had to leave her alone.

“This ring isn’t enough for you.  _ I’m  _ not enough for you. But I’ve loved you since the moment I laid my eyes on you and Madeline Anka, I just want to spend every moment with you for the rest of our lives. Will you ma-!”

“YES!”

She surged forwards then, his Madeline, and she fit so snugly in his arms where she had always belonged, she felt so  _ good… _

“Well… I suppose this is acceptable.”

“Acceptable?!” His mother screeched at Bucky's back, “Are ya  _ nuts?!  _ I have a wedding to plan, and it ain’t goin’ t’be in a  _ years  _ time now, is it?!”

“My wife would-”

“Papa, can we get married on Valentine’s Day?”

Bucky grinned so hard he thought his face would split in two, “Maddie! I was just goin’ to say that!”

She laughed then, it was watery, rushed, almost sounded like a bark… but it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

Talks of churches or synagogues raged around them, discussions on his parents and him going back to Madeline's house to meet her mother and start planning rose and fell… the second most beautiful sound as far as Bucky was concerned.

“Hey, Hiccup?”

Brushing a stray lock of golden hair away from her face, Bucky nodded to show he was listening.

“You wanna feel it? Our baby?”

Madeline took his hand, gently placed it over the small bump… his baby,  _ their  _ baby was in there…

“I promise to love you both forever… you won’t get away from me again,”

Her kiss tasted sweeter than he remembered. 

***

**May 16th 1936**

Bucky had been here for nine hours, thirty five minutes and fifteen seconds. Not that he was counting. Looking again at the clock on the wall, he saw the minute hand slowly inch it’s way past the 6.00 PM mark.

Their baby was right on time, and yet they had  _ not  _ been prepared. It didn’t matter what his ma, or Madeline's mother had told them to do, or what this moment would be like, when Madeline’s water had broken as he had cooked her breakfast,  _ she  _ had screamed and  _ he  _ had dropped oatmeal and toast all across the floor of the kitchen.

The mess would probably still be there for him to clean up when they got home.

“I think the baby will be a boy,” Filip Anka said into the silence, suddenly, “Yes. Big strong boy, who looks like his grandfather and will be very smart too. Like his grandfather, also.  _ Not  _ like his father.”

Bucky ignored him. He liked his father in law, he wasn’t a bad guy… but he also never stopped himself from giving Bucky hell at every available opportunity.

“Girls run strong in the Barnes household, Filip,” George Barnes piped up, “I gotta say, I reckon it’ll be a little girl. Hopefully she’ll look like Madeline though and not Bucky,”

Great. Now his dad was picking on him.

“Buck? What would you like the baby to be?” Steve’s voice was soft, as if he knew how hard this was for him.

“Healthy… alive…”

They all went silent then. Childbirth was no joke. Madeline was lucky in that her parents could afford for her to have a private room at the hospital, that she could be attended to at all times by doctors and nurses.

Down his street, women and their husbands weren’t so lucky. Their  _ babies _ weren’t always so lucky.

“Mr Barnes?”

The nurses voice snaps him out of the morbid nightmares that plagued him during the daylight hours. There was some confusion when his dad stood up instinctively, until Bucky stepped around him and hurried to the nurse,

“Madeline, is she-?”

“Would you like to come through? The rest of the family can come through straight after,”

This was a good sign, right? They wouldn’t ask all of them to “come through” if anything…  _ bad…  _ had happened.

Right?

Each step down the hall was like wading through thick mud when you’re in a rush. His shoes almost stuck to the floor, the air became too thin to breathe…

_ When did it get so quiet? How did he not hear when the baby was born? Don’t they cry? _

The door to her room appeared in front of him, Bucky didn’t remember the last steps to get there. The nurse nodded her reassurance and, on a deep breath, Bucky stepped through.

_ I’ll be there, babydoll, Maddie, my beautiful Madeline… no matter what, I’ll love you- _

“Hey, Hiccup, stop gawpin’ like a fish and come meet your daughter!”

Again, that weird time thing where his steps closing the distance were lost, he just found himself almost kneeling on the bed, wrapping an arm around an exhausted looking Madeline and staring down at the most beautiful creation he had ever seen…

“A girl? She’s… Madeline she’s so  _ precious!” _

“I know… I think she’s going to look like me,”

“Thank god!”

His parents stood by, tears in his mom's eyes and his dad furiously sniffing away any trace of the emotional response. Filip was more open, looking down at his daughter and granddaughter like he had just laid eyes on the eighth wonder of the world. Madeline's mother was more stoic… but Bucky knew enough about her to know she would be feeling a maelstrom of emotions and would wait until she was alone with Madeline to show them.

Fingertips trembling with a need so profound he couldn’t even name it, Bucky whispered against Madeline's hair, “C-can I… can I hold her?”

A tired smirk, sea treasure eyes lit up with love and humour and an already  _ fierce  _ maternal love, Madeline transferred their baby girl from her arms to his.

_ Such a small weight… how can you be so tiny, and still hold so much of my heart, little girl?  _

“What’s her name?”

They had talked about names. Shirley. Barbara. Mary. But none of them fit now… she was so much  _ more  _ than those names…

“I uh… do you like Charlotte, James? I heard it and… I think she’s a Charlotte,”

Smiling, positively  _ glowing,  _ Bucky pressed a kiss to the soft downy hair on top of his baby’s head, “Yeah… Charlotte Barnes. My baby girl.”

More talk. Charlotte passed around between grandparents and Steve, but only for a few minutes at a time. Bucky’s arms felt empty whenever she wasn’t there for him to hold.

But he had Madeline. His strong, beautiful, smart Madeline who gave him his baby. Made him into a husband and father. His girl… his  _ wife,  _ looked like a painting fur for a museum when she held their baby girl, her wedding ring glinting on her finger next to the dull plastic of the “engagement ring” he had given her, and that she refused to take off and replace.

The love of his life and he would  _ never  _ take that for granted.


	5. Chapter 5

**February 14th 1937**

Married a year and Bucky woke up with only the thought of holding his wife against him and just  _ being… _ but Madeline had other ideas,

“Lottie is asleep, James, how about I give ya your anniversary present whilst the goin’ is good, huh?”

Her palm had been warm where it touched him, eyes still soft with sleep only just being banished by the waking sun. His breath caught in his throat, a smile had stretched across his face… His wife knew some tricks… good thing he knew some too.

The music of her pleasure was better than any noise a symphony could make… and it was almost  _ fun  _ to keep that music  _ quiet. _

Wouldn’t want to wake Lottie, after all.

Her skin was so soft, hot to the touch, his ice queen made of passionate fire and eyes that held such sinful  _ promise… _

He could never get enough of her.

Nightgowns and bottoms and undershirts were discarded, scattered across the cold wooden floor of their bedroom, tangled in the still warm sheets of the bed, and all Bucky could see and taste was his wife, so wet and welcoming around him…

Soft skin made slick, the scent of roses and breathy moans against his neck.

He hooked her leg higher around his waist, took a long moment to suck against  _ that  _ spot on her neck, enjoying how she raked her nails down the skin of his back with one hand and caught the nails of the other on the hairs dusting his chest.

He loved her a little harder then, a tease for the sensual punishment she had just given him. Maddie held onto him tighter, whispering how much she loved him,  _ needed  _ him, oh dear God,  _ please… _

The headboard tapped a beat against the wall, the air grew just a little thicker and Bucky collapsed over his beautiful wife of one year, both of them spent.

Lazy kisses then, the taste of morning on both their mouths, but who cared for that when she was twirling her hips against his just so…

“Already, Maddie? Can’t get enough of me, huh?”

“Quick, James, before I change my mind...”

His fingers trailed lower, teasing desire from his wife—

—Shrill, sharp, and still one of the best sounds Bucky had ever heard, the sound of Charlotte’s cries for food and love, ended any chance he had of loving on his wife for a second time that morning.

“Well… happy anniversary, Hiccup,”

Groaning, and after placing a lingering kiss to Maddie’s lips, Bucky rolled off of her and quickly donned his bed clothing again, “You get dressed and stay there, I’ll bring her to you, Madeline,”

Nine months old, a soft smattering of white blonde on her head and dark blue eyes, Charlotte was definitely going to be a spit of her mother. Every time Bucky looked at her, his heart sang at the sight of his little angel.

He was nineteen, soon to be twenty, and his whole life was perfect. It was a blessing he never  _ ever _ wanted to take for granted.

“Hey, little Lottie… wanna go see mama?”

Her cries continued, but that could not deter Bucky on this amazing day. Picking up his little darling, her adorable cries  _ just  _ this side of deafening in his ear, he changed her before passing her off to Madeline to feed.

Madeline, golden hair messy about her head and pillow marks still etched against her face, sat up waiting for her baby, arms outstretched and smile fully bloomed on her face.

The transfer of Lottie from his arms to Maddie’s always almost  _ hurt.  _ The sight of his wife taking her though, softly humming and all that attention firmly on their daughter… it soothed Bucky in a way he could never quite articulate.

“Is there room in there for me, Madeline?”

An amused look from under her lashes, and she nodded, flipping the sheet over and exposing the half of the bed he could occupy,

“Whaddya say, Lottie? Should we let daddy come cuddle?”

Lottie was otherwise occupied with her breakfast so, on a chuckle, Bucky slid into the bed next to them anyway,

“Gotta keep my girls warm, don’t I?”

Madeline moves gently, scooting across the space until she could nestle under his arm and against his side, Lottie held in her arms whilst she nursed. 

It was their one year anniversary, and it could not get any better than this.

***

**May 16 1938**

“Hey, Maddie, have ya seen Lottie’s boots?” Bucky bellowed they question from their daughters room through to where his wife was in the kitchen. The apartment they lived in was small, but on a day like today, they both bustled about with so many different things, sometimes shouting was the only way to communicate effectively.

Lottie babbled away at him, mostly gibberish with a random “dada” or “mama” and other words all strung together as she swung about her old rattle. Two years old today and looking more and more like Maddie every day… 

“Baby girl, where didja hide your boots, huh? Can’t take ya to the park to feed the birds without ya boots!”

“Birbs! Birbs!”

“I know, baby,” Bucky picked her up and glared at the quiet doorway, “Maddie! Can you answer me?!”

Still nothing.

Frowning, Bucky walked through and walked into Maddie sat at the kitchen table, cigarette held in loose fingers as she read through a letter, a small frown creasing between her eyebrows.

“Maddie? Have ya gone deaf, or what?”

“Huh? Oh!” Blinking rapidly, she stubbed out the cigarette and folded the letter back up, “Sorry, Hiccup, uh… just a letter from Lena in Warsaw,”

Lena was Madeline's cousin, they had never met, Lenas parents having never emigrated, but they wrote each other letters as often as possible. Bucky bounced Charlotte, who was starting to get antsy in his arms,

“Oh? Is everything okay?”

He needed to find Charlotte's boots… he needed to find out what had put shadows in his wife’s sea treasure eyes…

“Maddie?”

Another blink and Madeline brushes past him and went to the rack by the front door and grabbed the missing shoes. Rolling her eyes at Bucky, she dangled them by their laces on a finger at him, “Didn’t look  _ too  _ hard, didja?”

“Huh, okay, smarty pants,” on a good natured grumble, Bucky placed Lottie on the table and started to button up her little shoes… looked like she was going to need new ones soon…

“Lena just said there’s some worry in Poland right now, Hiccup… Papa has mentioned something too,”

Lottie’s little fists were pumping up and down, her feet swinging this way and that in the air, making it hard for him to get the boots done up right. He was barely paying attention to what Maddie was saying.

It was his daughter's birthday and he only wanted to take his girls out to Central Park for the day.

“Birbs, mama! BIRBS!!”

At that, Madeline finally smiled, her attention no longer divided and solely on Lottie who held her chubby little arms for her mother,

“You wanna go see the birds, huh? I guess we’d better get goin’ then, right, Lottie?”

“Dada! Birbs, Birbs, Birbs!”

Of  _ course  _ Maddie was actually already ready to go, basket with some sandwiches and a flask or two of tea ready to go for them to eat and drink later. Of  _ course  _ he was now the one rushing to button up his waistcoat over his shirt and adjust his suspenders…

But,  _ of course,  _ Madeline helped him, looking through her lashes at him and teasing him when there was a hair out of place before plonking his hat on his head.

It was a beautiful day. Lottie’s grandparents met them there where the apple of their eyes was thoroughly  _ spoiled.  _ The ducks got well fed, Bucky’s arms felt like they would fall off from the amount of times his baby wanted to be thrown into the air, and Lottie never stopped smiling. 

Bucky’s daughter slept from the moment they got home and Madeline cuddled up to Bucky and the radio played some lovely music that he didn’t hear. His wife’s lips on his tended to steal his concentration, completely.

The letter from Poland was forgotten about.

***

**December 1939**

Hanukkah had been celebrated, all traditions observed. It might not be the religion that Bucky had grown up with, but Madeline knew it and respected it. They had agreed to teach Madeline the Jewish and the Christian faiths. 

Now, it was Christmas’s turn. A tree glittered with its many decorations, a fire burned away merrily and Lottie’s eyes were still bright from the busy day she had had.

“Mama, can I have another cookie?”

“No, darling, no more sweets for you today,” 

Bucky chuckled under his breath at the teary eyed look his daughter gave her mother, smothered it quick when she turned her golden blue eyes on  _ him, _

“Daddy? Cookie?”

“What did your mother just say, Lottie?”

“But- but-”

“No buts,” his voice was firm, and he tilted his head at her, holding out his hand so she could toddle over to him to climb into his lap, “you have had  _ more  _ than enough for today, young lady,”

Madeline sat on the floor, legs folded neatly under her as she started to pack up the (brand new) tea set her and Lottie had been playing with. He could see that amused smirk playing against her lips, even through that perfectly coiffed wave of golden hair.

Their daughter was spoiled rotten by them. It would be unfair to be mad at her for that.

It was dark outside, snow just glimmered beyond the window. Tummies full and cosy atmosphere, the only real noise was the cracking of the wood over the fire.

This was the fourth Christmas he had had with his girls and they only got better.

“I think that little angel is ready to sleep, daddy,”

Sure enough, Lottie’s little snore tumbled against his shoulder. Bucky’s left hand cradled the back of her head, his right held her securely to his chest.

_ You’re getting bigger everyday, little Lottie. I still love you more than anything else. _

“Come on, angel, let's get you to bed.”

She went down so easy now. Barely a grumble when Bucky changed her into her nightclothes and a sleepy “love you, daddy,” when he tucked her in. It hurt in the nicest way to walk away, to turn his back on the slightly open door and leave his daughter alone for the night.

In the kitchen though… was his wife. Still the most beautiful and enchanting thing he had ever seen. 

Bustling around the kitchen, packing this away and wiping that surface down, she moves with such grace around the small space. It’s  _ safe  _ for her there. Her own private domain where she holds sway over everything in it.

The barest of ingredients, and she can cook up meals that satisfy and nurture him and his daughter and make him plead for another helping. It was a gift that his own hands didn’t have.

“Take a picture, Hiccup. It’ll last longer,”

Who cared about being caught staring when the object of his focus caught his hand and pulled him into the small bit of spare space that their small kitchen allowed?

“You wanna dance?”

Of  _ course  _ he wanted to dance with his Madeline. Having no music playing wasn’t a problem, her body held more sweet sounding notes and chords than the radio, anyway.

“Did you have a good day, Maddie?”

“Hmmm… I feel like I wanna slow time down a little… Lottie grows outta those dresses faster than I can sew up the material and she can almost reach for those cookies herself now,”

It was a happy kind of melancholy that laced her words. No real sadness. That was the point of having kids, wasn’t it?

Getting to watch them grow. To see them become adults and have their own babies.

“Hey…” Bucky spun Maddie, almost knocking her into a chair and causing a mock punch to be aimed at his shoulder, “I have another present for you, Maddie… let me show it to you,”

“Oh yeah? James, honey, you didn’t-”

Her protests were silenced, his lips moulding to hers. She tasted like sugar and cinnamon and  _ love. _

The only wrapping on her gift was the material she was wearing, and Bucky enjoyed inching it off of her.

Her thighs were soft around his head, the sweet and salt tang of her better than any Christmas treat. Madeline came three times on his mouth and once more when he held her to him, joined in the most intimate way.

“God, I love ya, Madeline Barnes,”

“I love you too, James Barnes.”

Almost four years together. He loved her more with each passing second.

***

**January 1940**

The cup with the tea clattered to the table, and a shaking hand was raised to Madeleines mouth. The letter in her free hand shook, her eyes were wild when they finally turned to Bucky.

What she said changed everything. Bucky just didn’t know it yet.

“War broke out in Poland, James.”


	6. Chapter 6

**June 1940**

Six tense months had passed since Madeline had been told about the war breaking out in Poland. Six months of scouring every newspaper and tuning into every news story on the radio to try and find out what was happening. To find out if that war was coming to their shores.

It terrified Bucky. Something _ bad _ was happening in Poland, bad enough that armies from all over were fighting against the Germans that had invaded. Lena’s letters were almost non existent at this point. And yet…

Madeline, her parents…  _ Lottie… They  _ were safe. The war  _ wasn’t  _ in America. In the dark and quiet when his wife and daughter were sleeping he could admit this one thing to himself; that  _ their safety  _ was all that really mattered to him.

“But what if it  _ does  _ come here, James? This war ain’t small… what if-?”

“Then we’ll  _ deal  _ with it, sweetheart,” Bucky placed trembling fingers over his wife’s lips, taking a moment to caress her cheek, “ _ if  _ that happens, it’s goin’ t’be a long way off,”

Their bedroom was dark, it was almost midnight. Lottie slept peacefully, completely and blissfully unaware of the turmoil her parents faced. Bucky only wanted for it to stay that way for his baby girl.

Four years old was way too young to be feeling her parents strain.

“What will we do, James… if it  _ does  _ come here?”

Bucky had thought about this already, discussed loose plans with his pop and Filip, and relief hit him when he realised he could allay  _ some  _ of his wife’s fears,

“We’ll get out of New York, Maddie. Straight away. I’ll take you and Lottie, and my sisters, and we’ll head upstate and past that… get as far away from the cities as possible… and… Madeline?”

She was smiling, but it wasn’t a  _ happy  _ smile, by any stretch of the imagination. Her golden hair rustled against the pillow as she shook her head at him,

“No… Hiccup, that’s not what I mean… if it comes here,  _ you’ll  _ be expected to go. Hell, if you don’t volunteer, they’ll probably  _ force  _ you to go!”

“No… Madeline, no…” Pulling her into his arms, he held his wife as she trembled lightly, trying not to make a fuss over how his bed shirt was slowly getting soaked from tears he knew she wouldn’t want acknowledged, “I’m a father and husband, right? You girls are my dependents… ain’t no one takin’ me away from you two… hush, baby, hush…”

Bucky didn’t  _ know  _ that, of course he didn’t. He wanted to believe it though, so damn much. It hurt that his beautiful, strong, and amazing wife was being reduced to tears because of some asshole in another country. Worry plagued her constantly, he could see it in the shadows under her eyes, and the way that her clothes hung just a little looser on her now.

War was coming… but Bucky held out hope. Britain were already fighting them, doing everything they could, from what the news stations said, anyway. It was a Kings army against a raving lunatic. That has to count for something.

That wasn’t the first night that Bucky had to rock his wife to sleep, and it wasn’t the last.

The hush before the storm lasted another eighteen months. Lottie has started school, Madeline had started a part time job as a secretary at a doctors office, and Bucky took over full time management of his dads shop.

That’s when Pearl Harbor was bombed and his hopes of avoiding the war were dashed.

***

**21 September 1942**

The morning started out as any other, Madeline snoring gently in his ear, the bed feeling just a little cooler now that fall was wrapping her claws around the edges of the new season, and those goddamn birds tweeting furiously at each other at six thirty in the morning. Groaning, Bucky rolled over and pulled Maddie to him, placing kisses against her hair,

“Come on, Madeline. Gotta get up, get Lottie to school,”

“Don’t wanna. You do it.”

He blinked at the pouting tone… Madeline playing with him was a  _ very  _ rare occurrence these days. Deciding to make the most of this interlude, Bucky snorted, and ripped the covers off of his wife, greeting her with the cold air, “Get ya ass up!”

She was a lovely sight, still naked from the night before where he hadn’t been able to keep his hands and mouth off of her after a bad day of worry. More men from town were volunteering, more men drafted and taken from their families. They had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, not bothering to get dressed again when a sated sleep pulled so deliciously at them.

Madeline’s sea treasure eyes weren’t glowing up at him in pleasure now though, they were positively  _ burning  _ with fury at his nerve, and her shriek was enough to quiet the birds outside,

“You rotten jerk! Gimmie that back!”

“Nuh uh,  _ doll! _ I have’ta get t’work and take over deliveries from pop, so get that beautiful behind outta bed and-  _ ooof!” _

A discarded pillow landed squarely in his face and Bucky promptly fell off the bed with a  _ thump. _

“How’d ya like my beautiful behind  _ now,  _ Hiccup? At least it ain’t bruised up like  _ yours  _ is!”

“Oh, you’re gonna  _ get  _ it!”

Bucky jumped up, and grabbed his wife, taking her down to the mattress with him. It was like the last eighteen months hadn’t happened, Madeline was laughing, he was laughing ... their bedroom was filled with that good kind of happy music. Deeper and more meaningful than just sex. This was the type of music you made when you didn’t worry and you were just  _ happy  _ to be with that special person you loved-

“Mommy? Daddy? What’re you doing? Why aren’t you wearing any  _ clothes?!” _

Madeline’s behind definitely ended up bruised when she shrieked and rolled them off the bed.

After hurriedly getting decent and distracting Lottie, the rest of the morning had been perfect. At least until they were heading out the door, Madeline to take Lottie to school and then head to work, and Bucky to the store… and the postman came up and handed them one letter. US Army insignia stamped on the corner, blazing bright against the white paper. Lottie didn’t make it into school that day, and George Barnes ran the store for his son.

The draft had reached Bucky. There was no way to hide from it. He was going to war, whether he wanted to or not.

***

**March 1st 1943**

Seven months of training, assessments, tests, drills, and yet more training. Moving across the state to live in the barracks of Camp McCoy and leaving Madeline and Lottie behind were some of the hardest months Bucky had ever faced.

He could barely manage that, how the hell could  _ anyone  _ expect him to manage whole years without listening to Madeline’s velvet and satin voice in his ear? How the hell could he go so long without swinging his baby girl into his arms and listen to her babble? Lottie was coming up to  _ six years old! _ Everyday she grew bigger. By the time he came back she might not even  _ remember  _ him anymore.

_ If  _ he came back.

“Don’t you  _ dare  _ think like that, Hiccup! Don’t you  _ dare!” _

Madeline’s hiss, scared and angry, made him stop his furious pacing. He was home on a weeks furlough before heading back to Madison Barracks to complete his training. They had promoted him to Sergeant. His ma and his pop had cried proud tears… until they had to leave the room to cry real ones of fear, in private.

“Maddie, I  _ have  _ to think like that! I have to think of  _ everything!  _ I’m going to London and… this war is taking a lot of men, darling…”

“Well it  _ won’t  _ take you,” 

Her hands, ice cold from despair, held his face between her palms. Gentle, soft… he was  _ precious  _ to Madeline. The same way she was beyond precious to him. Married for six years and he still got butterflies when he heard that warmth in winter voice… and now there was a chance that he wouldn’t hear it, ever again.

“Madeline… just promise me that if something  _ was  _ to happen that-”

“James,  _ no!” _

“If something  _ was  _ to happen to me,” Bucky overrode her, sternly, taking a hold of her wrists, anchoring her to him, “please just promise you’ll do whatever you need to do to keep Lottie and you safe, okay? Even if… even if you have to re-marry,”

It hurt, to say that out loud. To admit that his death would leave his wife a vulnerable widow and that she may have to find a new man… but not as much as the way she wrenched away from him.

“Are you  _ insane?! _ Re-marry?! Do I  _ look _ like the re-marryin’ type, Hiccup?!”

Madeline looked like she could go to war all on her own, with her temper unleashed as it was. That wasn’t the  _ point,  _ however. Even with her dad's wealth at her back, Madeline still needed  _ protection  _ that only a husband could provide. Bucky opened his mouth to reason with her, to make the dumb, stubborn broad  _ listen  _ to him… but she shut him up again by throwing herself into his arms, crushing him to her,

“I’ll promise to you that I’ll do as you ask, James,  _ if  _ you promise me something in return?”

Ice and fire down his spine as she whispered those words directly into his ear with plush velvet lips. He hadn’t seen his wife in weeks… Lottie was safe and asleep in bed…

“What do you want, Madeline? I’ll do anything you want,”

A fools promise. He had always been a fool for his ice queen though.

“I’ll think about marrying some no good loser… if  _ you  _ promise you won’t die, okay, Hiccup?”

Sneaky minx. Cheeky she-devil. He couldn’t promise her that, even though every atom in him wanted to…

“Madeline…”

Her legs, long and beautiful in her dress, pushed against his as she backed him towards their room… nirvana and hell awaited him in that bedroom. He could hold Madeline and make love to her all night…

But he couldn’t stay. This night was one of a handful they had left and they both knew it.

“Shut up, James… just kiss me. Please don’t leave here without kissing me?”

She had said that to him before… when they were only eighteen and desperately in love… he hadn’t been able to say no then, and he certainly wasn’t strong enough to now.

The bed dipped underneath them. Not for the first time, and hopefully not the last.

***

**14th June 1943**

The flyer caught his eye in the morning, “ _ Stark Expo: Step Into The Future!” _ . Of course Bucky took it back home, showed it to his girls. Of  _ course  _ Lottie’s eyes lit up in childlike wonder at the possibilities that the future could hold. And of course Madeline’s smile didn’t reach her eyes when she agreed to go.

His last night home before he shipped out in the morning.

Lottie didn’t really understand yet. The potential horrors of war were not a real concept to her. All his baby girl cared about was that her daddy was home and he would take her somewhere  _ fun.  _ She batted her blonde eyelashes at him and he caved and  _ promised  _ to buy her some cotton candy when they were there.

Madeline didn’t ask for anything. Too stressed to eat, said she felt ill when Lottie was too far away to hear, and barely let go of his hand the whole day.

Time ran against them. Bucky wanted to claw it back with desperate fingers, hold it to him so no more precious seconds could tick away… but that clock kept on counting and all too soon they were on their way to the Expo to meet Steve there.

Excited to see what crazy stuff Howard Stark could come up with, and yet Bucky didn’t  _ want  _ to step into the future. Not really.

He was perfectly happy with the life he had in the present. Who needed flying cars, anyway?

“Uncle Steve!”

“Hey there, Lottie,” Steve grunted when Lottie ran at him, smiling fully when she wrapped her arms around his neck and begged to be picked up. Steve could do it,  _ just,  _ but it was obvious that she was starting to get too big for him. Madeline wrapped her arm around his waist, nodding her greeting to Steve, and leaving Bucky to look his oldest friend over,

“Where’d ya get that bruise, Steve?”

“Oh, uh,” an awkward look at Lottie who was pointing in every direction, “I had a talk with a guy outside of the picture house,”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

Steve’s jaw ticked for a moment, a sure sign he was angry, “He was talkin’ during the commercial for… you know. I told him to pipe down and the jerk didn’t like that,”

“We’re not allowed t’talk during the movies, are we, daddy?”

Bucky smiled at Lottie as she smiled at him from over Steve’s shoulder, “No, honey. No we are not,” Lottie beamed at his praise, but Bucky still glared at Steve who couldn’t meet his eyes.

They walked further into the expo, all bright lights and dazzling ideas. The future right there in front of him. Bucky hated it… for just this second, he hated every last thing there that showed there was a future that was going to happen, and he might not be there to see it.

“Wow! Daddy, mommy! Lookit the flying car!”

“We see it, darling,” Madeline took their baby back from Steve, who looked more than grateful for the reprieve, and stared in astonished wonder at the contraption.

“Hiccup? You seein’ this?”

“Yeah, Maddie… wow…”

_ It’s beautiful and spectacular, and you’ll fly around in this one day, and I’ll be cold and in the ground. _

The car sputtered, the engine failed and the whole thing fell to the floor of the stage. Howard Stark - shorter than Bucky had imagined him to be - made some quip he barely heard, and the crowd laughed. The fantasy proven false and it was okay because  _ these  _ people were still going to see tomorrow.

Madeline squeezed him, her arm a vine he wished was made of iron, strong enough to tie him to her for longer. Bucky turned to her, her free hand holding firm to Lottie who was bouncing, trying to look up at the stage.

“You okay?”

“I don’t want to go, Maddie… I just want to stay.” It wasn’t the lie he was going to say… but Maddie didn’t hold that small bit of weakness against him,

“I wish you could stay too… James, I need to tell you-”

His wife had looked nervous for a split second, something that she  _ never  _ looked, but Lottie interrupted, voice squeaking over the music from the stage,

“Where’s Uncle Steve, daddy? He said he would buy me candy!”

Sure enough, the little pipsqueak was nowhere to be seen. Looking around, Bucky spotted the probable cause for his best friends absence - a recruitment centre.

“James… come on. Let’s go get a hot dog and head home, yeah? Lottie’s getting bored and I need to talk to you -”

Maddie knew him, probably better than he knew himself, sometimes. She clearly knew that Steve was pushing his luck with him tonight. Steve was so damn lucky, he was  _ never  _ getting into the army, and yet…

“Go and get me a hot dog, sweetheart, I’ll meet you girls in a few minutes, okay?”

Bucky didn’t wait to kiss Madeline or Lottie, didn’t listen to his wife’s hurried words at his back. All he was were the glowing lights of the stupid centre, lit up like some beacon of hope against the cold dark… and his idiot friend was there, desperately trying to sign up for a war that would kill him easier than any ailment he already had.

Steve’s small back was silhouetted against the entry, he was almost inside, when Bucky caught up and grabbed him, easily pulling him to the side of the building. 

“Buck?! What the-!”

“So, doing this again, huh? Who are you this time? Steve from Ohio?”

A petulant frown marred his friends face, “You don’t get it, Bucky,”

“Oh sure I do, Steve. It’s just another thing you’re left out of and you can’t stand it!”

Hurt spasmed across his friends face, and warning bells went off in Bucky’s head… he shouldn’t say this to Steve. It wasn’t  _ Steve’s  _ fault he had to go away…

“Men are laying down their lives, Bucky!” Steve finally barked, causing heads to turn their way, “I have no right to do any less than them!”

The ridiculousness of that statement almost took Bucky’s breath away. 

_ Almost _ .

“Are you  _ insane?!  _ What is your problem, you jerk?! You think the only worthwhile thing you can do in this dumb war is go out and get yourself killed?! Another dead American on foreign soil to get stepped over?!”

“That’s not-”

“You can stay here and be  _ safe,  _ Steve! You  _ have _ that option! There is so  _ much  _ that you could be doing here to help, and yet your stupid ass just  _ wants _ to go and die?!”

“I’m going to die anyway, Bucky! Might as well be doing something worthwhile!” Bucky blinked at the tears that shone in Steve’s eyes. Something like regret burned in him.

“I can’t not  _ try,  _ Bucky… I should be going so people like  _ you  _ don’t have to,”

And there it was. Steve was giving him an out, a reason to forgive him and let them move on from this silly argument. After all, who wanted to fight with their best and oldest friend right before shipping off to a war zone? Bucky certainly didn’t… and yet…

“Steve, I’m twenty six years old. My baby girl has just turned six and I’m leaving her and my wife to fight in a war that won’t care if I live or die…” he paused for a minute, tried to weigh his words…

“I can’t do this knowing that my girls are on their own here. I can’t go worrying that you’re gonna get yourself thrown in jail for lying to the government. Just… stop being an ass, Steve? America don’t need you, but  _ they  _ do!”

Bucky couldn’t see them, but he could  _ feel  _ Maddie and Lottie behind him. A warmth that he was desperately clinging to, before it got snatched away.

Steve didn’t say anything. Bucky knew he wouldn’t, anyway. Apparently, Steve could only lie to the faces of strangers… he wouldn’t promise Bucky not to keep on trying to sign up when he had no intention of stopping.

Short asshole.

“Just try not to do anything  _ too  _ stupid whilst I’m gone, okay?”

Steve’s smile just barely tilted his lips, but it was there, “How can I? You’re taking it all with you.”

He hugged him then. Pulled Steve Rogers right into his arms and hugged him, years of friendship into one quick hold. It wasn’t enough to convey what he really felt, how scared he really was, how much he would miss Steve being at his right at all times, how nervous he was to meet new people and how absolutely stark raving  _ terrified  _ he was about the probability of killing another person.

Bucky couldn’t say that out loud to anyone… not Madeline, and not Steve.

Bucky pulled away, stepping back towards his girls and gave one final wave towards Steve. The fact that his best friend returned the wave with a salute hurt… but he was a soldier now… so he returned it.

***

“Here… I had this made for you. Keep it safe, okay?”

Bucky was in bed, eyes still stinging from the tears he had been unable to hold back after putting his little girl to bed and hearing her whisper,  _ I love you, daddy,  _ right before he had turned off the light. Madeline stood over him, soft and beautiful in the low lamplight, arm outstretched towards him.

He took her hand, pulling her to sit next to him, “What d’ya have for me, Maddie?”

Her hands trembled just slightly when she handed over the tiny parcel. The brown paper crackled as he unwrapped it, and tears threatened once again when he saw what was inside; a pocket watch, with Madeline and Charlottes photograph inside.

“We’re always with you, Bucky. You won’t feel me holding you, and you won’t hear Lottie calling your name when she runs into the door… but we’ll be there, Hiccup… all three of us,”

Her words didn’t sink in. Not straight away. Those last four words trickled through the recesses of his brain, like it was a maze and understanding would come only through too much work… but he got it, in the end,

“A-all… all three of us? Madeline-?”

She stood, taking off the robe that she had been wearing and revealing the satin nightgown she wore underneath. Pale blue, lace trim, it was Bucky’s favourite on her… but she filled it out just a little more now around the stomach…

“Madeline?!”

“I realised this morning, James, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you straight away! I- I didn’t know how!” Tears shone, they made her eyes sparkle, “I- I think- well… when you were home last was when it happened…”

The bump was small, not even that noticeable yet, but Bucky saw it just fine, he couldn’t look away if he tried… not that he did try very hard.

His own hands started trembling then, his whole body shook along with it, his fingertips tingled when he brushed them over the smooth fabric that covered tiny baby bump. So many emotions were right underneath the surface, that maze making it hard to separate them… but one came through bright and strong;

_ Hope. _

She sniffed, holding his hands to her, thumbs rubbing circles against his skin. Madeline knew him better than he knew himself sometimes… she let him be silent,

“I want you to have us there but… you can’t leave us, James. You can’t leave me or Lottie or whatever blue eyed little baby I have inside me. We’re here, waiting for you to come home, I don’t care how, or if you’ve lost an arm or leg or if your stupid handsome face is all burned off,”

Bucky laughed. He didn’t think he could and he knew it wasn’t really funny… but he laughed.

“I just want you home, okay? I love you, James Barnes.”

He couldn’t promise her. Lies weren’t something they told each other, even ones that would help the other sleep at night… so he asked the one question he could right now, the one that would help him push through and get back home;

“Do you know what it is? You think we’re gonna have another girl? A boy?”

A golden eyebrow raised at him, small smirk tugged at her lips, “You’ll find out when ya get home, nosey,”

Their kisses were wet with their tears all night. The bed dipped beneath them and Bucky pressed his lips to the new bump on his wife’s body over and over. His eyes burned in the morning as he got washed and dressed and picked up his suitcase. It could be from exhaustion, or the tears.

Or the smoke from the boat that pulled out of the harbour, it was thick and black and it obscured his wife and daughter who waved at him as it sailed away, taking him into war.


	7. Chapter 7

_ “32557” _

His wrists hurt. It was funny.  _ Everything  _ hurt, and yet… it was his wrists that hurt the most..

_ “32557” _

His name felt strange on his tongue, like trying to talk over a mouthful of food —

_ Hungry _

— but, still, he said it. Mumbles ignored, syllables forgotten as soon as he uttered them, and yet… he still made himself say them.

_ “32557” _

Sunlight streamed in, it felt warm on his face… but….

_ Not real. _

He wanted to hold onto it though….

_ “Bababababa!” _

_ “Come on, pumpkin! You can say it! Say dada!” _

_ Little face, all bright like a winter morning, smile so happy it was infectious. _

_ “Bbbrrrrrrr!” _

_ “Don’t push her, Hiccup, little Lottie will say mama when she’s god and ready, won’tcha, pretty girl?” _

_ His Madeline… his Lottie- _

“NO!”

His wrists still hurt, but that pain that was building in his head? Oooh, boy. That was starting to play catch up real good.

_ “32557” _

“Up the dosage… raise current by five percent,”

Another day… or week… but at least his wrists were hurting less now…

_ “Daddy!” _

_ “Lottie, sweet girl! You took a tumble, huh?” _

_ Blue eyes, blonde eyelashes and ringed with red gazed up at him. Little lower lip trembled, _

_ “M-m-my kn-knee, daddy!” _

_ Chubby finger pointing to a chubby knee which was barely grazed. No amusement though. Not at his baby with the sore knee, _

_ “C’mere, sweet girl, let’s get you back to mama, yeah? Unless…” arms unwinding from his little angels form, a hug all that was needed to soothe her, “you wanna try again on your bicycle, Lottie?” _

_ A pretty smile on a bright and pretty face. His girl fell down but she would always get back up- _

“NO!”

“Raise by a further three percent!”

Damn… did his wrists and head hurt… but that spot in his chest was hurting the most…

_ “Do you, James Barnes, take Madeline Anka? To have and to hold, as long as you both shall live?” _

_ Beautiful dress on a beautiful woman. Eyes unable to leave those pretty eyes of hers. No doubt lived in him, Madeline was home… his heart… _

_ Madeline… _

That name was easier to remember… but he didn’t want  _ them  _ to have it, so he stopped saying it.

_ “32557” _

Wrists were almost agony now. A fight brewed up from nowhere. Those names were  _ his,  _ they weren’t going to take them!

“Up the dosage… push him further…”

Blonde heads smiling at him… little girl saying “dada” first…

_ “Say, Hiccup, think y’could win a teddy for me, handsome?” _

_ He would win every star in the sky for her, if she wanted. _

_ “Sure, sweetheart, I’ll win ya a teddy bear… what’ll ya give me if I do?” _

_ A taste of pretty red lips was what he had been angling for…  _

_ “You already have it, James… you already have my heart.” _

_ It wasn’t like before. With those other pretty girls at the carnival. The air gun popped, and the blocks went down, and he won his best girl the biggest prize on the first try. Those pretty red lips had tasted better than he had imagined… _

“Good, Soldat… very good…”

_ “32557” _

His wrists didn’t hurt so much now… odd… images crashed and flowed in his skull and it was harder to hold onto them… onto his girls and the precious bump that would almost be a baby by now…

Boy or girl, boy or girl… boy… or girl…

_ It’s hard being without you, Hiccup, Lottie asks for you everyday and Becky and Agatha miss you something fierce. They come almost everyday just to play with their niece, but I know they want to keep me company and from going insane. _

_ Your little bump is kicking around like crazy, too. I think I know what’s swimming around in here, James, and I can’t wait to hold our baby in my arms. My little bit of you. _

_ Maybe when I hold them, you’ll feel it too. We’re right there with you, my darling. _

That was the last letter he had… before…

_ God,  _ his wrists weren’t sore anymore… but he was so tired and hungry and thirsty… there wasn’t much fight left in him anymore.

_ First steps into their new home. Small and functional, and theirs. Filip has helped, and Bucky had swallowed his pride at accepting that help. He wouldn’t have his Madeline— he wouldn’t have his  _ wife —  _ if Filip hadn’t been as good hearted as he was… _

_ “Looks good, huh, James? I mean… it could use a woman’s touch, no doubt about it, but- what’re you starin’ at, Hiccup?” _

_ Noon light in her hair, lit up like an angel with that beautiful bump at her belly… _

_ “I know just what the first decoration should be, Maddie…” _

_ Her coat fell to the floor, his hat to the chair… they didn’t make it to the bedroom during their first time in their first home… but it was theirs… _

_ “32557” _

Time meant nothing now. Time used to be on that clock that his parents had bought for one of Maddie’s birthdays… now it wasn’t there anymore… who was going to reach up to get the dust off the top of that clock now…

_ “Hiccup, can ya reach that top shelf for me, please? Just give it a quick wipe?” _

_ Newspaper on the table, eyebrows raised, _

_ “Uhhh… y’can reach it, can’t ya? Tall dame like you?” A placating smirk, “I like watching ya do it,” _

_ Quiet in their apartment. Lottie with her grandparents and Maddie bustling with dinner before he took her to the pictures… _

_ “Maybe I like seein’  _ you  _ reach up and stretch, huh? Didn’t think about that, didja, handsome?” _

_ Blonde eyebrows dance up and down suggestively, and the cloth is thrown at his face. They didn’t make it to the pictures and the dinner burned on the stove. _

_ But she felt glorious in his arms… _

_ “32557” _

It was almost boring. What they did. How much it hurt. A day, a month, a year… who knew anymore.  _ He  _ didn’t—

_ “32557” _

— but nothing changed. It was okay though. They would kill him before they broke him. Madeline, and Charlotte, and his mystery baby. Ma and Pop, Becky, Agatha, Steve… they were okay because he never said their names out loud…

The room was extra cold. No one had been in for a while…

_ “32557” _

Noisier too. Lots of banging and crashing. Pops too… like guns…

_ “I d-don’t… I don’t think I can do this…” _

_ “Sure ya can, Barnes! Get your eye on the target and shoot!” _

_ That was alright for  _ him  _ to say, whichever screaming soldier was in his face now. It wasn’t  _ his  _ hands that would have a poor young soldiers blood on them, was it? _

_ But this was war. _

_ “Take the shot, Sergeant!” _

_ Pulling the trigger, a few pounds of pressure, was easy. The red mist of another man’s life was almost pretty. His unit lived another day and he didn’t stop scrubbing his hands in the snow. _

_ “32557” _

“Bucky? Oh my God…”

_ “32557” _

“Bucky, it’s me, it’s Steve…”

His wrists still hurt but… they weren’t tied down anymore…

“Steve?”

The eyes were blue… more green than gold… but he remembered those eyes… 

Wait…

“I thought you were dead!”

“I thought you were smaller…” His friend had saved him… “Did it hurt?” It hurt him to stand.

“A little,”

“Is it permanent?” What would they say when they saw him now…

“So far,”

It hurt to walk. He was so thirsty… so tired… but his best friend had saved him. He could walk out and get home now… back to Maddie and Lottie and his little baby bump…

He just had to get out of here first.

***

**November 1943**

He had been there a month. A month that felt like a lifetime, that sped past in the blink of an eye. He was  _ free  _ now. Steve Rogers, the short asshole, was now Captain America. Tall and strong and everything he had ever wanted to be. The face of the war effort against Germany, and absolutely ready to die for his country.

To say Bucky was grateful for his best friend was an understatement. To say he would gladly kill Steve himself was, also, a  _ massive  _ understatement. Some scientist had pumped him full of drugs and let the cocktail take its course on his best friends frail body… and the idiot had  _ let  _ him. Bucky sighed as he watched Steve enter the pub they were in, brown army suit giving him an air of superiority that his lack of height and muscle had always prevented before.

Steve Rogers looked like the hero Bucky had always thought he really was… he was never going to get his friend back,

“See? Told you! They were all idiots!” 

“They” of course were the men he had been held captive with. Not an idiot among them… but he couldn’t say that out loud.

Steve smirked and sat down beside him, “And you? Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

“Hell no,”

There was a pause… a heartbeat… Steve waited for Bucky to continue and say something funny, and Bucky waited for his best friend to get smart.

Cornel Phillips had given him the option of an honourable discharge. He could ship out back home within the week… he could maybe even get home soon enough to see the birth of his baby…

“Bucky?”

“This is your fight, Stevie… it was never mine. I had everything I ever wanted at home, and I was forced to give it up. I have a chance to get it back and I’m not squandering it… not even for you. I’m sorry.”

It broke his heart to see how Steve suddenly looked lost. How it never even occurred to him that Bucky might say no,

“Maddie was pregnant again when I left, Steve… I need to get back to her. You understand, right?” It didn’t really matter though. His choice had been made. 

A lifelong friendship boiled down to a glass of wine and a hug that didn’t last long enough later into the night…

But he had his Maddie to go home to.

  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

The boat trip back to New York has been long, with far too much time for Bucky to brood on all that had happened and all that was still happening without him there. War raged on, bloody and brutal, and Steve stayed to fight it with men who saw almost the same hardship he had… but he was lucky enough to go home and be with his family, whilst they chose to stay behind…

It didn’t matter that they had been given the same choice he had. It didn’t matter that he was the lucky one with a beautiful wife and daughter and future baby ready and waiting for him… the choice to go back to safety instead of fighting weighed him down.

Bucky had expected to feel excitement over the days and days of sailing across the Atlantic towards home. For the memory of Madeline’s kiss and Charlottes hugs to put a permanent smile on his face. The idea of a new baby, waiting for  _ him  _ to get home before being born, should be making his heart quicken and joy to radiate outwards, like heat from a sun warmed road in the summer…

Instead all he felt was dread.

The nights were the worst. More than once he had woken up screaming, terror induced sweat keeping his clothing clinging to his body and his lungs pushing out and pulling in oxygen far too fast. Then there were the other nights, the dark ghost nights. He couldn’t sleep at all then, just clutched at the blanket and jumped at small sounds, like he was five years old again and afraid of a thunderstorm.

Shadows were permanently painted underneath his eyes, made all the more obvious by the fact his skin was so pallid looking. The cheekbones that Maddie used to call “pretty” now almost cut through his skin and the body that was strong from work and the YMCA now showed off more bones than he was used to and less muscle that his wife had loved.

Bucky was a whole new man… and he wasn’t the same one that had left his wife and daughter with a fragile promise to come home.

All too soon, and nowhere near quick enough, Bucky stood on the deck, watching New York come closer and closer. His eyes searched for his girls, for the possibility of one of them holding onto a little bundle that squirmed and squeaked like Lottie had done when she was a baby…

The smoke billowed, obscuring the harbour, blocking all the people waiting there from his eyes… but the boat stopped. The anchor was dropped, and the gangplank was lowered.

Bucky was home and his family waited for him.

Squaring his shoulders and pulling a smile up from somewhere, Bucky made his way down onto American soil, eyes darting this way and that to find the family that he left behind… he couldn’t see them straight away and his heart started pounding… what if they hadn’t got the message about him coming home, or what if they didn’t want him there anymore? A broken soldier who took the easy way out of war-

_ “Daddy!” _

His breath was punched from his lungs when Lottie appeared from nowhere, her blonde head colliding directly with his stomach and her arms wrapping themselves like vines around his midriff.

“Daddy, you’re home! I missed you so much! Please don’t go again?”

“Awww, sweet girl, I couldn’t leave you again, I love ya so much, Lottie,”

He picked her up, not as easily as before but he would always have strength to hold his baby daughter, no matter what, and cuddled her close. The scent of home and youth and hope emanated from her…

One dark ghost left him, banished by the sunshine that was Lottie Barnes.

Other arms wrapped around him, he could feel wet tears and hear mumbled greetings. His pops voice thick with emotion and his ma’s shaking with sobs that she didn’t bother to hide. Becky smacked his arm and told him off for scaring her, and Agatha smacked  _ Becky  _ for being “so damn rude”, and both his sisters held onto him, tight enough to leave bruises.

All these arms were safe. Were  _ good.  _ These were the arms of family and joy and comfort…

All these arms were  _ too much- _

“Excuse me, d’ya think the pregnant lady could get a look at her husband?”

Velvet. Chocolate. Warm nights in front of a fire whilst the cold raged outside… Madeline’s voice,  _ finally,  _ and the panic that gripped him simmered down, easing away until he could breathe again. His family fell away, his mother with one watery laugh, his father with a grip to the shoulder and his sisters with another couple of swipes and cheek kisses. 

Lottie stayed holding onto his hand though. His daughter wasn’t going anywhere and he was more than happy to let her stay at his side.

Madeline stepped forward, hair neatly pinned, big coat not enough to shield the fact that she was bigger than she had been with Lottie… she was beautiful and radiant and peace settled over him like a warm blanket as soon as he looked at his wife.

“Well, Hiccup? Aren’t ya gonna tell me how fat I got?”

He was careful, but he still pulled her to him, held her as tight as he could with a young girl holding firm to one hand and a huge baby bump pressed between them. Madeline still smelled of that intoxicating perfume and baked bread. She still felt like heaven and hell… and she still held him harder and more fiercely than anyone who was pregnant had any right to,

“I  _ missed  _ you, Maddie,”

“I missed you too, Hiccup. Let’s get you home.”

_ Home. _ Things were going to be different… but he wasn’t scared of it anymore.

***

The days were short, winter saw to that. The cold crept in under doorways and snuck under hemlines. Darkness gathered in every corner and no amount of fire light could ever really banish it.

And yet, little Lottie was sunshine enough for the darkest of days.

“Daddy! Mama says I’m going t’have a little brother soon! That’ll be so much fun, won’t it, daddy?”

“Sure will, sweet girl,” Bucky smiled, lifting up her small weight so he could hold her on his lap, “Will you be okay with a little brother? I don’t want t’hear of any jealousy now. Your mother has enough to deal with,”

Maddie scoffed from her seat by the fire, sea treasure eyes on him. They hadn’t left him since they had got home and the rest of his family left. Questions, both blunt and more subtle, had been asked about what had happened in Italy. His family, his  _ wife,  _ were far from stupid. They knew that he wouldn’t have been discharged early just “because”... 

But he couldn’t talk about it. He barely remembered anything, anyway. Bucky was  _ home…  _ the darkness of Italy should stay there, where it belonged. Those dark ghosts weren’t welcome in his home.

Maddie knew though. He didn’t need to say a thing and she knew he was keeping things from her. Bucky didn’t want to talk about Italy… he just wanted to be with his family and remember how to be a husband and father again,

“So, Madeline… a boy, huh? How’d ya find that out? You use one of Howard Starks magic future boxes or somethin’?”

Narrowed eyes, pursed lips, but his wife put down the knitting she had been doing and smiled at him, “I had a dream. A little boy who looked just like his daddy… I’m positive it’s a boy in there, using my bladder as a throne,”

“Oh,” Bucky whispered, holding Lottie closer, “you’re sure, just from a dream?”

“I had other dreams… I’ve never dreamed this much as I have since you’ve been…  _ away.  _ I just think that this one is real, too,”

Maddie didn’t elaborate, and Bucky didn’t ask, but he knew. Saw it in her eyes, the words she wasn’t saying. His wife had dreamt about all the bad things that could happen to him whilst he was gone… and she had had to wake up to a morning where at least  _ one  _ of the bad possibilities had come true. Bucky had been captured and she hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.

Bucky didn’t blame her for wanting to believe the good dream could be a reality too.

Lottie snored lightly in his arms, making him jump and Madeline to snort in amusement,

“I think your little princess needs to get to bed. Let me-”

“No,” Bucky picked up his daughter and took a couple of steps to Madeline’s side, “You get yourself to bed, Maddie, I’ll be there soon… let me get her to sleep. I missed doing it,”

She took his hand, soft smile adorning her face. Firelight danced across her features as she looked up at him from her seat… she looked tired, his wife. But… she looked happy.

“Get our baby girl to bed. I’ll be waiting for you,”

***

Sleep, surprisingly, came easily. Bucky expected to be plagued by the same nightmares that had haunted him on the boat back home, visions of blood and metal, cold, sharp ice and bright white snow... but no. He had slid under the covers next to Madeline’s warmth and barely managed a few words of love and a caress against the bump that housed his next child before sleep had pulled him under.

The sleep didn’t stay, however. The clock ticked to three AM and Bucky woke up as suddenly as he had fallen asleep. It was too warm, too constricting. The blankets tangled around his legs, the pillow smothered his face and the mattress threatened to swallow him whole. The perfect softness that Bucky had craved suddenly became a bog that would drag him down, choke him, steal the life from him that he was lucky to have gotten back.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed a bit too loudly, and a bit too suddenly, and almost ran out of the bedroom.

Shadows clung to the walls. Dark ghosts in every corner. 

Lottie’s door was ajar, his trembling hand opened it just enough to see that she was okay, sleeping soundly with her mass of blonde curls about her head like a crooked halo.

His girls were safe…  _ he  _ was safe…

Wasn’t he?

“James?”

Maddie’s voice… soothing in the way only hers could be, spoke up from one of those dark corners. Bucky could’ve sworn he almost saw the ghost that had tried to inhabit it fly away.

“Come back to bed, James. You need your beauty sleep,”

The tease was gentle, soft, not meant for harm and it warmed Bucky in a way that he couldn’t really explain… it just meant a lot that Maddie still knew she  _ could  _ tease him. That he hadn’t changed that much.

“The bed… it’s so soft, and uh…”

How to explain that he thought the soft mattress was now too uncomfortable for him? That sleeping on dirt for a few months had erased his whole life of sleeping on beds? That sleeping with his wife felt like he was drowning in the worst kind of sensation?

“Is it too soft, Hiccup? You uh… maybe wanna sleep on the floor next to me? You can hold my hand,”

What a ridiculous notion. Pass up a chance to sleep next to his pregnant wife on his first night back home…

“Come on, James. Come back to bed… but you’re not getting an extra pillow if you’re on the floor,” Madeline winked and turned back to the bedroom, “I am pregnant, ya know,”

Slow footsteps back to his bedroom. Careful observations of Maddie’s movements. Was she angry? Disappointed? Her husband had come home, safe and sound, and the first night with her and he had to sleep on the floor-

“You know, this will probably be good for me, Hiccup. My back hurts a lot with this little one, I’ve been tossing and turning most nights, at least this way I won’t be keeping you awake too,” His pillow was fluffed up in her hands and she placed it gently against the floor, left hand against the small of her back, “and when you’re ready? I’ll have pushed out this little guy by then, anyhow, so it’ll be completely back to normal,”

Back to normal… him, his wife and his  _ two  _ children… sounded like heaven.

“I love you, Maddie… m’sorry about this,”

“Hush. Just get your ass to sleep, I’ll be here in the morning. I love you too,” Maddie said the last part almost like an afterthought, making Bucky smile and smother a chuckle as he walked to the side of the bed and lay back against the blankets that Maddie had laid for him.

Her hand was soft and warm in his, a perfect contrast to the cold hard floor underneath him. 

“James?”

“Hmmm?”

Sea treasure eyes glowing at him in the moonlight, she looked like one of those pretty mermaids from Becky and Agatha’s books as she gazed down at him from the mattress,

“I- I know you won’t want to talk about it. I know whatever happened was  _ bad…  _ but you  _ can  _ lean on me, alright? Whatever you need,  _ when _ ever you need it… you’re not just a war hero, you’re my husband, the man I love and father of my children. We’re in this together, okay?”

Words would never do enough justice to what Bucky felt right then. Maddie was giving him love, trust, absolution and safety, all in a few sentences. How could he tell her what that meant to him? 

“Maddie… I… I won’t keep you out. It’ll be hard but… I promise not to shut myself away from you,”

“Good. Because I’d just knock on that door, or wall, or whatever you put up, until it fell down around your ears, do you hear me, Bucky Barnes?”

Shock ran through him, “Did you just call me Bucky, doll?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, rolling her eyes, “dont’cha get used to it, Hiccup. Now get to sleep, your son is being especially active right now, and I’m tired,”

She rolled onto her back then, rubbing gentle circles into her stomach and keeping hold of his hand with her free one. Slowly, her breaths evened out and his best girl fell asleep. 

One evening with his wife?

Three AM in Brooklyn was no longer filled with dark ghosts… his bedroom was like a park in the middle of summer and his Madeline was the sun.

***

The next morning was a flurry of activity. Bucky didn’t have time to brood or wallow. Barely even had time to throw water on his face and get him and Lottie dressed before all hell broke loose.

James George Filip Barnes was born at noon, and at home. He filled Bucky’s arms perfectly and his wails were the best sound he ever heard.


	9. Chapter 9

**November 1944**

The first year was hard. More nights spent on the floor than what was proper. Nights holding too many dark ghosts to deal with and using the excuse of his crying son to get out of sleeping with his wife. Daylight hours were easier, but Bucky still struggled sometimes to see past the shadows of the cell he had been held in.

How did a bare month wipe out so much?

Maddie did what she could, whispered platitudes and endearments in his ear when he cried at night, held his hand when they were on the street and wore the most beautiful smile whenever he looked at her, but even that started to wane when he couldn’t always return it.

Bucky  _ wanted  _ to smile, wanted it so bad he could cry, but he only felt truly happy when Lottie was bounding in and out of rooms and asking to play with her brother. Bucky only knew peace in the quiet midnight hours when he held baby Jimmy in his arms and watched his son’s nightly fussing ease away into sleep.

The promise he had made to his wife tasted like ash in his mouth. Six months after coming home and he couldn’t remember the last time he had taken her in his arms in their bed. When was the last time he had made his wife giggle? Or she had teased him openly, and without nerves lining her face at his reaction?

When had been the last time he had told her he loved her?

“Daddy? Why are you sad?”

The sunlight was waning through the trees, winter was starting to make its presence felt in the shorter days, longer sleeves and buttoned up coats. Lottie looked like sunshine in human form with her bouncing blonde curls and pretty pink dress and her white coat. It was a Sunday afternoon and Bucky had volunteered to take the kids out for a walk whilst Maddie started dinner. It had barely been a conversation. Bucky had wanted to be nice… but his wife saw straight through it as the excuse it was to get away from the house.

“Daddy?”

Bucky stopped, blinking against the sun and looked down at his daughter. Her blue eyes, exact same shade as Maddie’s, stared right back up at him, all innocence, and odd childish intelligence, 

“Sweet girl… I’m not sad, how could I be, with you and your brother right here?”

Jimmy cooed in his stroller then, waving his little rattle. A smile bloomed on Bucky’s lips at the sight… until Lottie answered,

“You’re sad because you miss Uncle Steve and you feel bad that you’re not fighting that silly war with him like everyone says,”

Bucky frowned, “Now, what do you know about the war, Charlotte?”

“Nothing,” she shrugged, “I just heard mommy say something like that to Auntie Becky. I’m glad you’re not gone away again, daddy. I missed you a lot and mommy used to cry when she thought I couldn’t hear,”

Bucky’s throat closed up, and he worried at the pocket watch that held the image of Maddie and Lottie in his pocket, rubbed his thumb over the smooth metal over and over.

His wife had cried for him. Worried herself sick about him, and she made sure to do it when she was all alone. Coughing, and pretending to wipe up some non existent drool on Jimmy’s little face, Bucky finally answered Lottie,

“I worry about Uncle Steve a lot, but that’s not why I’m sad, sweet girl,” his daughter frowned then, looking alarmingly like her mother, so he took her hand and walked to a bench with her and sat down, “Can I tell you a secret, Lottie? It’s something I haven’t told  _ anyone _ ,”

Guilt briefly speared through Bucky. Lottie was only eight years old, he  _ shouldn’t  _ be talking to her about things like this… but his baby girl squeezed his hand and nodded enthusiastically, curls bouncing around her face,

“You can tell me anything, daddy, I won’t tell anyone, I promise!”

“Well… Lottie, I’m not  _ just  _ scared for Uncle Steve. I’m scared for  _ me.  _ I don’t want to go back, but I feel like I  _ should _ want to go back… like…” Bucky cursed himself for talking about this, but now he had started, he couldn’t seem to stop, words dripped from his mouth happily, like escaped water from a tap and he couldn’t find the right pressure to close the faucet, 

“Being there was the most terrifying thing I have ever been through, but I’m safe and I’m healthy now. I should go back and help them, right? I shouldn’t have this happiness that I have because all those men are still terrified out of their minds, and here I am getting to sit and eat dinner with my family like nothing is wrong. I guess I feel guilty, Lottie. And then I feel worse because I don’t feel guilty  _ enough  _ to go back. I want to be with you, and Jimmy, and your mommy,”

There was a moment where Bucky realised what he had just said, and who he had said it to. The moment stretched into eternity, Bucky called himself every name under the sun and even made a few up to  _ really  _ tell himself off. How  _ could  _ he dump all that on his daughter? Maddie would  _ kill  _ him, and Lottie didn’t even understand-

“But you  _ are  _ here with us, daddy!” Lottie giggled and hugged him, “You get to stay with us! And anyway,” she hopped down from the seat and stood in front of him, hands on her hips, “Uncle Steve is  _ big _ now, silly. He punched Hitler over 200 times! He doesn’t need  _ your  _ help, but mommy still needs someone taller to help her reach the things on the top shelf.”

Laughter bubbled up, at his daughters earnestness, at the way she suddenly lost all interest in him and stared longingly at the ice cream cart, and at how she was  _ right. _

Bucky was losing everything he wanted, and he already had it. He was  _ such _ an idiot,

“So… you think we should head back and help mommy with dinner, Lottie? And I think your brother needs a change, too,”

“Yeah, he’s smelly,” Lottie replied, matter of factly, “Can I have ice cream?”

“No, honey. Dinner first, your mother has worked hard on it,”

“Okay,  _ fine _ ,” 

Bucky grinned at the pout, and took her hand again, quickly checked his pockets and his hat, and they began to walk back home in silence. They were almost home when Lottie spoke again,

“Mommy only ever smiles  _ big  _ when she sees you, daddy. I remember now. Mommy has one smile for me and Jimmy, and this  _ special  _ one for you! It’s real pretty, I missed seeing it when you were away,”

Bucky pondered this as they walked up to the small house. Considered how the smile he had seen Maddie wear recently was  _ off  _ in a way he had noticed, but not really worried about. 

The smell that greeted them as Bucky opened the front door was heavenly. Even with the rations on good ingredients, and scarce options for choices, Maddie still did more than her best to make something delicious. Tonight was clearly going to be no different.

Lottie ran to the kitchen, Bucky could hear her babbling to Maddie who patiently asked Lottie to wash her hands before she helped her set the table. Jimmy burbled in his stroller, still waving his rattle and smiling a gummy smile up at Bucky.

His family, right there for the taking.

Bucky took his time, removing his hat and running his hand through his hair to make sure it was parted right. Shaking out his jacket before putting it on the hook and tidying up the shoes that Lottie had left lying around.

Bucky only noticed  _ then _ that Maddie didn’t call for him. That she hadn’t been calling for him or meeting him at the door in  _ weeks… _

“Come on, Jimmy boy… lets get cleaned up for dinner, huh?”

His son's small, warm weight felt good against his chest as he manoeuvred the stroller into the cupboard and then walked him into his room to change. Bucky baby talked to Jimmy, laughed when his son did, and pretended to be outraged when his little legs kicked at him.

Bucky loved being a father… a husband. All the little things that he got to do and see. He was  _ here.  _ Bucky was blessed enough to get the chance to see his son and daughter grow up. Was lucky enough to still have a wife who loved him and had never  _ once  _ made him feel worse about what he had come back home from.

“Okay, let’s go see what mommy has cooked up for us, huh, buddy?”

Everything was almost ready in the kitchen, dishes laid out on the table and food on the counters, ready to be served, and Maddie with her back to him in the pale blue polka dot dress that, Bucky knew, made her eyes pop…

Bucky secured Jimmy in his chair, silently pointed to the other free seat so Lottie would sit down, and then walked to his wife who was reaching for the salt on the top shelf. Bucky stood at her back, didn’t take it personally when she stiffened in shock, and reached over her head to grab the shaker.

Her warmth permeated into his shirt, that perfume that he could never remember the name of hit his nostrils and immediately brought such a flood of memories and sensations he almost gasped. Her golden hair tickled his face as she finally turned to him, red lips tilted up in a wary smirk,

“Well, Hiccup, are you going to get that salt down for me, or are ya just goin’ to stand there all day?”

“I’m sorry, Maddie,” Bucky whispered against her ear, “I promised I wouldn’t leave you behind… I’m sorry, honey,”

There was a pause, he could feel her sigh against his chest…

“I need help planning Jimmy’s birthday party… putting up decorations, could ya help me with that? And uh… there’s some music playing at Armstrongs next week, too… should we see if your parents will look after the kids? You haven’t taken me dancing in a long time, James. I think I would kind of like it,”

She kissed him then, a new promise in red lips. Forgiveness in pretty perfume, and love in blue and black polka dots.

The children fussed, dinner needed to be served, baths still needed to be had, and stories still needed to be told, but at the end of the night, Bucky took his wife in his arms in their bed and made sure to remember not to forget to do it again. He had been home a year, it was time to let the war go and focus on what was important.

His family.

  
  


**July 1945**

The news came slowly, in dribs and drabs in the way that most of the news about the continued war effort always did. Bucky didn’t even realise there was something to notice for most of the day. The shop was quieter than usual, but then it had been getting quieter for a long time, thanks to the war. The kids that usually ran around outside were more maudlin somehow, their makeship toy planes, made from Bucky’s spare boxes or old bottles, were repeatedly crashed to the floor which they would then stare blankly at for a while.

Those little faces seemed so sad… 

It wasn’t until later in the day that Bucky figured out why. Maddie came in, holding Jimmy tightly and leading Lottie by the hand. Both his girls eyes were red rimmed, tears still rolled down his daughter cheeks. When she ran at him and asked to be picked up, Bucky didn’t hesitate and sent a questioning look at his wife.

It took too long for her to answer. Long enough that Bucky knew what she was going to say already… 

“The news has been coming all day, James… Steve saved the world, and he died doing it.”

**September 1945**

This time there was no hesitation in the news coming through. Radios blared it, newspapers proclaimed it, and people ran up and down streets shouting for joy.

The war was over. The Japanese had signed their surrender, Adolf Hitler was long dead… it was done.

The streets were teaming with people celebrating, no way was work going to get done any time soon. Lottie’s school had all but cancelled. Everyone wanted to be with their families… what was left of them. Others vibrated with the excitement of having their families whole again, of their men returning to them…

Bucky wouldn’t get his best friend back, though.

“Hiccup, if you don’t get that ass out of bed, stop pouting, and get to celebrating with the rest of us…”

Bucky rolled his eyes at Maddie, who, naturally, looked unimpressed, and rolled hers right back,

“Don’t get cheeky with me, James.” A finger was pointed in his face, voice dropped low to a warning growl, “Today is a day to celebrate! Everything is  _ good  _ now and-”

“Steve died for this, Maddie… no one would’ve wanted to see this more than him, and he’ll never know how good it feels that it happened. I’ll never get to thank him for what he did,” Bucky turned away then, away from the sunlight and Maddie’s scowling face. The guilt at not going back to war, at knowing that Steve was still fighting without him whilst he got to hug his wife and watch his kids get bigger had ebbed and flowed over the last year. Some days he felt he was falling back into his bad habits, and other days he would be dragged out of them by all the love from his family.

Today, however, he felt sick. If he had been with Steve, he would never have been so stupid as to crash that plane-

Bucky grunted as his pillow was swiped from under his head and promptly smacked against his face.

“You are thanking him by being alive, you fool! Steve died for just this reason, and you know it! He didn’t go to war just to fight and prove what type of man he is, he went to end the war, to put a stop to bad people  _ in _ the war!” Tears shone in her eyes as she stood over him, tears Bucky had never seen before, because Maddie never allowed herself to cry in front of him.

Bucky slowly sat up, held his hand out for his wife… and she took it after a long moment, sitting next to him and resting her head against his shoulder,

“I know you miss Steve, James… but can we please celebrate today? Celebrate that it’s over now? That… that I don’t have to worry about you being taken away from me again?” 

Bucky felt his bed shirt get wet with her tears, and held her tighter to him… he had been a fool, never really considered that she might be terrified in the same way he had been…

“I don’t have to worry anymore, and neither do you. Steve would be happy for us, I think,”

“Yeah, he would…” Bucky smiled then. It hurt, his heart ached for the loss of his friend… but he had his best girl in his arms, the sound of freedom in the streets, and the joy of his kids to look forward to. Life was good, and he needed to remember that. He  _ wanted  _ to.

“Come on, Maddie, let’s get dressed, yeah? I love ya, sweetheart. Thank you, for puttin’ up with me,”

“I don’t  _ put up _ with you, I  _ love _ you, you idiot,”

  
  


**14 February 1946**

Furtive whispers. Secret glances. Giggles hidden behind closed doors.

Maddie has never been a fan of secrets that weren’t her own.  _ Especially  _ when they were being kept by her two children and her husband. It had been the seventh morning in a row where she had walked into a room that had suddenly gone quiet.  _ Too  _ quiet.

“Okay,” Maddie sighed, eyeing up the guilty parties, “who’s gonna tell me what’s goin’ on?”

James smirked, rustled his paper and shrugged, “Nothing, Madeline. The kids and I are just havin’ some fun, if that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah, mom!” Lottie piped up, grinning from ear to ear, “It’s just a private joke!”

“Momma ‘ook pretty!” Came from Jimmy, a smile stretched across his little face. He was looking more and more like his father every day. Maddie sighed to herself… she was going to have to watch out for that.

James was resolutely staring at his newspaper, and Lottie was poking at her cereal. Neither of them moved to say anything… acknowledge what day it was…

“Okay, well, I have to get to work, remember? And then I have an appointment at the salon so I won’t be back until later?”

No sudden flash of memory across her husband's face. No guilty flush stained his perfect cheekbones… no acknowledgement at all of what day it was, really.

“Yeah, doll, don’t worry about it! I’m good with the kids, and Becky said she might pop over and bring us some lunch. We’ll be fine,”

There was  _ still  _ nothing. Not even to kiss her on the cheek! Lottie, of course, came and said goodbye, Maddie hugged her daughter for just a few seconds longer than normal… but she felt like she was entitled to do so on this day-

“Go on, doll, you’ll be late for work!”

Maddie stood up, glaring down at her husband with a look that could blister paint and, without another word, stalked out of her house and into the cold February wind.

It was their ten year anniversary, and James forgot all about it.

***

“Whew!” Bucky breathed a  _ huge  _ sigh of relief the second the front door closed, “Think your mother suspected anything?”

“No, dad, you acted like you had no idea, perfectly!”

Bucky pressed a quick kiss to the crown of Lottie’s head, then to Jimmy’s, and then stood up, clapping his hands together in excitement,

“Okay! Let’s get cleaned up and then get to decorating!”

It wasn’t every day he could surprise Maddie with ten years worth of celebrations in one day. He couldn’t wait to see his wife’s face when she realised she had been duped into thinking he had forgotten all about her.

***

Madeline didn’t notice anything for just a few seconds after walking through the door later that afternoon. Her head was too full of her possibly unfair, but no less bitter, disappointment in her husband and family. Not so much as a surprise visit to her work to see her at lunch. It was Valentines Day, all around her women were swooning at the gifts this husbands had given them. Pretty flowers were being delivered all around Madeline’s head.

None for her though. Her wedding anniversary had comprised of a too loud waiting room filled with germ encrusted hypochondriacs. Then, just to add insult to injury, she had run fifteen minutes late for her appointment at the salon, so they gave it away. Some twittering newly wed who was babbling happily about the beautiful date her husband was taking her on… and Madeline had got turned away with the snide looks that  _ she  _ didn’t have a date to go on.

James Barnes had  _ forgotten. _

Kicking off her shoes on a huff, Madeline turned to the coat rack, and  _ that  _ was when she saw it;

Twinkling lights from the small sitting room.

Head tilted, and suddenly aware of how  _ quiet  _ it was, Madeline walked towards the room slowly, patted her hair awkwardly, and coughed as quietly as she could. Her hand reached for the handle, pulled it down, and opened to a cacophony of colour.

_ Okay,  _ Madeline grinned to herself,  _ maybe I won’t kick James out just yet. _

Her family, James, Lottie and little Jimmy, stood in one corner, looking more pleased with themselves than she had ever seen them, and she supposed they had every right to, really.

Her dining table was  _ full  _ of flowers, similar to the ones they had at their wedding, with the Thanksgiving centrepiece nestled snugly in the centre. Christmas lights hung happily from every surface, and the Christmas Tree stood in its usual spot in the furthest corner, near the window.

Red paper hearts, covered in gold glitter that Maddie tried not to worry about sticking to the carpet, were hung all over the ceiling, the clock was just striking midnight, and there was the Menorah in its place in the mantlepiece. 

Birthday cards. Oranges. A pumpkin...

“It’s ten years worth of celebrations, Maddie. Ten years of holidays and love… all because you let me dance with you on our birthday,”

The room was getting blurry, probably because the fire was lit and it was warm… Maddie wouldn’t cry in front of her children, oh no she would not…

“You didn’t really think I had forgotten, did you, doll?”

“Don’t call me doll, Hiccup,” Maddie warned, the threatening edge to her voice ruined slightly by the way the words cracked and the smile creasing her face. James was stood right in front of her, the kids still stood in the corner. Maddie raised her hand to his face, brushed over the lines that were starting to mark the corners of his eyes, down the sides of his mouth… ten years was a long time to live the love that they had… she hoped by the time they went to their graves their faces were so creased, and lined and wrinkled that they didn’t even look human any more.

James’s eyes shone, his left hand on her hip and the other resting on her shoulder. That smile that had caught her eye a decade ago still made him the most handsome man in any room. Her arms wrapped around his neck without thought… standing in his arms had felt more right than anything else had done when she first met James Buchanan Barnes, and that feeling never went away. It grew stronger, harder. Her heart was like a diamond for him, the facets that shone were each carved by the love she got to have for their children, and her family, and his.

“Fine, I won’t call ya Doll, Maddie… I’ll call ya my love, my wife, my best girl, dearest friend and mother of the most amazing kids in the world.” his lips, still soft, still igniting fire in her blood, kissed her softly, “You think you can handle that for the next ten years, Madeline?”

“Hiccup… I’m gonna handle that for the rest of our lives, and don’t you forget it.” Madeline smirked, before double taking at what was hung from the light fixture above them,

“Is that mistletoe? Are you planning on making out with me in front of the kids, Bucky?!”

James laughed then, threw his head back and positively bellowed, making the kids join in, and her own giggle burst out of her throat. A wink at Lottie, and music started to play, very similar to the tunes from Armstrongs. Lottie took her little brother and tried to teach him to waltz.

And Maddie danced with James. Their love, in gentle swaying, soft jazz notes and childish laughter. 

Forever.


End file.
